LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 2' -"• 



tween ruins and rock-work, and we hardly know what to call 

 it : we cannot call it rock-work, because there is nothing like 

 rock about it ; if a nine-inch brick building had been melting 

 away instead of tunibhng down, and when it was half melted 

 had suddenly congealed again, we might, by a stretch of fancy, 

 consider the work in question a representation, but it has 

 melted holes in the walls, and these are furnished witli little 

 white heads that seem looking out with astonishment at the 

 change which has been wrought. A shell or two here and 

 there looks as if somebody had been pelting the inmates 

 while the walls were in a state of fusion, and they had stuck 

 there. And this, be it mentioned, has been executed by an 

 artist in rock-work for a gentleman who held him to no price, 

 but wanted good rock-work. The heads and shells do not 

 match each other : if the head of old Nej)tune had been 

 looking out of one hole, and a mermaid's head, with her comb 

 and glass, had figured at another, they might seem at home 

 among the shells, but to see Mercury and Milton at the holes 

 in the wall seems perfectly outre. AYe hare digressed, because 

 to show up prevaihng faults is no bad road to improvement ; 

 and we have not told people what we dislike without also 

 telling them what we approve. TVe may, however, be wrong 

 after all, and particularly if, as we are told by some, land- 

 scape gardening is subject to no rules, and cannot be recon- 

 ciled to any principles, but depends entirely on the taste of 

 the gardener ; for if so, all we have done yet is to show that 

 our taste differs very materially from tliat of many other 

 persons. 



ROCK-WORK AND RUINS TO PLANT. 



These two constructions are the same kind of receptacle for 

 plants, and what thrives in one will thrive in the other. 

 The most effective things are ferns, and these should occupy 

 most of the prominent places ; but now and then a yucca 

 will look well ; it is a noble looking plant, and its fohage, 

 though equally graceful in its way, forms an excellent con- 

 trast to the finely divided leaves of the ferns. As a com- 

 mencement of furnishing these buildings, mix up a paste of 

 loam, about as thick as the paste used by paperhangers, into 

 this put seeds of hardy ferns if you can get them, antirr- 

 hinum, wallflower, catananche, alyssom, veronica, i>rimrose 

 and any other flower you ever saw grown on a wall ; mix 



