26 ALPINE FLOWERS [PART I. 



little retreats for them underneath. They prefer a stone just 

 sufficiently raised to crawl under, and do a deal of good by 

 destroying slugs. He also protects frogs and all carnivorous 

 insects. Ceaseless hand-picking, however, is the best remedy for 

 slugs, and where this is not done, there is little hope of succeed- 

 ing with some plants, at least where slugs are as abundant as we 

 usually find them in gardens. 



GEOGRAPHICAL ARRANGEMENTS OF ROCK-PLANTS. 



I have seen in the Berlin Botanic Gardens an interesting 

 essay to grow alpine flowers as distributed over the various 

 ranges of mountains in central Europe ; keeping the plants on 

 such rocks, stones, and soil as they are found upon. While such 

 a plan may be pursued with some reason in a botanic garden, it 

 is doubtful, generally, for private places, and not an artistic 

 plan to pursue in a botanic garden, as the more we find 

 such ideas pursued, the less beauty we see, and beauty 

 should be the first raison d'etre of a garden. The so-called 

 "natural" arrangements of plants in botanic gardens were 

 most wearisome, and still uglier were the " Linnaean " arrange- 

 ments of living plants in botanic gardens. If the mind is fixed 

 much on any book system of setting out plants in gardens, 

 the precious gift of beauty is often lost. Therefore attempts to 

 imitate the particular mountain ranges and their flora is not 

 likely to lead to so good results as where we are free to get the 

 best result our conditions will allow of. 



One exception, however, I would make in our country, and 

 that would be a British Alpine and Moor Garden. We have our 

 own mountains, and many of them Welsh, Irish, Scotch, and 

 North English with many beautiful plants on them. It would 

 however, be an instance of hyper-refinement to grow separately 

 the plants of each of our own islands ; the effort should be rather 

 to show their unity and connection. So many people buried in 

 cities do not know that we have beautiful alpine flowers, natives 

 of our own land, that it might be well to let them see in a 

 garden of British Alpine and Moor plants. 



