2 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



material must be adapted to the work, and in all coloured and for- 

 mal scenes, the rocks should be used in huge blocks in piles and 

 mounds, not to imitate caverns and rude cairns, but strictly as orna- 

 ments to set off the beauties of other objects, or to give light or 

 shadow as the case may be. This is rock-work, not rockery, and it 

 involves the disposal of rough blocks in symmetrical masses or 

 groups, not in wild and fantastic outlines, and it conveys the idea 

 of artistic repose, not natural and rugged sublimity. The two ideas 

 must not be confounded, for while a rockery may be a most fantas- • 

 tic, gloomy, romantic, or savage scene, according to the desire of 

 those who construct it, and its fitness in this or that form to the 

 scenes in which it occurs, rocTc-iuork must be artistic and elegant, 

 every puerile conceit banished from it ; and the rough unhewn 

 material used simply, because that, in the hands of an artist, may 

 be made as appropriate and beautiful as the exquisitely sculptured 

 forms which the chisel might have obtained from it. "We put rocks 

 in cabinets, and a mighty block of granite may be quite appropriate 

 even on the terrace garden, and there, indeed, it may serve as a 

 memorial of an event worth remembering. 



Suppose you have a neat little flower-garden, with a wooded 

 lawn adjoining. This lawn, especially if it has a border of fruits, 

 will be as frequently resorted to as the walks through the par- 

 terres. Tour long walks under embracing branches will be pleasant 

 at all seasons, but much more pleasant both to you and your visitors 

 if there are some few special arrangements made to please the eye. 

 The gloom of green foliage is delightful, but how much is the joy of 

 an avenue enhanced if light is seen at its termination. Now a 

 border of shrubs, a bank of ferns, a bosky corner, or walks diverging 

 into other scenes, may form the vanishing point of your perspective, 

 and the calm shade has. no relief therein. Let the gardener get 

 together a barrowful 'of white stones of any kind, the larger the 

 better, and let' these be thrown down "any how" at the end of 

 such a walk, and in an instant the entire aspect of the scene is 

 changed. So far the object is accomplished ; a bank of light stories 

 is evidently just the thing to make the avenue charming. It is of 

 course not to remain for ever a mere barrowful " flung into the 

 void," but is to be built up neatly, and properly planted, and may at 

 last become a cairn after the fashion of the adjoining figure. 



Many uses for rock-work may be found, even in the immediate 

 vicinity of the house and flower-garden. Wherever it is so used, it 

 must be bright and artistic, pleasing the eye by contrast to the 

 orderly lines that prevail around, yet harmonizing with sculpture, 

 if need be, and with the bright scene it occupies, and its use made 

 legitimate by a display of plants that trail elegantly, or that look 

 best when spread over raised surfaces, as most alpines do. Then 

 where mounds are used there is no better mode of constructing them 

 than to form the foundation of brick-rubbish, and cover the whole 

 with huge dark stones, or with those conglomerated bricks which 

 are cast from the kilns as refuse. If alpine plants are to grow on 

 such a rockery, there should be provided for them a good depth of 

 Bandy loam, for unless they can root deeply they will not thrive. 



