xviii FOREWORDS TO NEW EDITION 



If we are to make artificial rock, it should be as a 

 last resort, and for effect only, as it never allows us to 

 grow plants half as well as the natural stone or even 

 the level soil. 



Much improvement, both in design and cultivation of 

 rock-gardens and rock plants, has taken place within the 

 past twenty years or so, and some effects on these rock- 

 gardens are now seen that were impossible on the old 

 form of "rock- work," with its dust-dry pockets and hope- 

 less ugliness. At the Friar Park, Henley-on-Thames, 

 South Lodge, Leonardslee, Warley Place, Batsford, 

 and many other places, we may see not only the rarest 

 Alpine plants admirably grown, but effects and colour not 

 unworthy of the Alpine fields. Even the public gardens 

 where the most grotesque arrangements were common 

 have changed much for the better. I wish one could 

 say there was the same improvement in the nurseries 

 devoted to these plants. There are fuller collections, 

 but the needlessly costly way of offering single plants at 

 a high price tends to prevent any artistic grouping or 

 massing of the plants such as a beginner might seek. 

 Many alpine plants, like the Houseleeks, Stonecrops, 

 and Rockfoils, are almost too facile in increase, and 

 many others distinct from these are easily raised 

 from seed, while the mountain perennials, like the 

 Globe Flowers and Harebells, are easily increased by 

 division. So that there should be no difficulty for 

 any one with a piece of even poor ground in treating 

 the public more liberally than in the usual way of 

 offering single plants. It would be better both for 

 gardens and the trade if the bolder way were followed 



