EMBELLISHMENTS. 465 



and holding them up. Such situations, in the case of a 

 small lake or pond, or a brook, are admirable sites for rock- 

 work. Where the materials of a suitable kind are 

 abundant, and tasteful ingenuity is not wanting, surprising 

 effects may be produced in a small space. Caves and 

 grottoes, where ferns and mosses would thrive admirably 

 with the gentle drip from the roof, might be made of the 

 overarching rocks arranged so as to appear like small 

 natural caverns. Let the exterior be partially planted with 

 low shrubs and climbing plants, as the wild Clematis, and 

 the effect of such bits of landscape could not but be 

 agreeable in secluded portions of the grounds. 



In many parts of the country, the secondary blue 

 limestone abounds, which, in the small masses found loose 

 in the woods, covered with mosses and ferns, affords the 

 very finest material for artificial rockwork.* 



After all, much the safest way is never to introduce 

 rockwork of any description, unless we feel certain that it 

 will have a good effect. When a place is naturally 

 picturesque, and abounds here and there with rocky banks, 

 etc., little should be done but to heighten and aid the 

 expressions of these, if they are wanting in spirit, by 

 adding something more ; or softening and giving elegance 

 to the expression, if too wild, by planting the same with 



* Our readers may see an engraving and description of a superb extravaganza 

 in rockwork in a late number of Loudon's Gardener's Magazine. Lady 

 Broughton, of Hoole House, Chester, England, has succeeded in forming, 

 round a natural valley, an imitation of the hills, glaciers, and scenery of a 

 passage in Switzerland. The whole is done in rockwork, the snow-covered 

 summits being represented in white spar. The appropriate plants, trees, and 

 shrubs on a small scale, are introduced, and the illusion, to a spectator standing 

 in the valley surrounded by these glaciers, is said to be wonderfully striking 

 and complete. 



30 



