PART I.] 



CULTURAL 



99 



rockwork figured on this page, which occurred in the Botanic 

 Gardens, Regent's Park. 



ft 



What to Avoid. 

 Sketched in the Botanic Gardens, Regent's Park, 1872. 



What a check to progress in this direction are such " rock- 

 works " as these ! And yet there is no way in which our public 

 gardens would do more good than by growing well, in the open 

 air, the numerous brilliant flowers of the mountains of our own 

 and other cold and temperate regions. 



ON THE GEOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF ROCKWORK. 



When rockwork has to be erected in a garden, it may be 

 found that success will be attained in the proportion in which 

 some broad principles, based on a study of Nature's own work, 

 have been followed. 



Every lover of Nature must have envied her power of 

 adorning rough stony nooks by means of a few of the commonest 

 plants ; a fern or two and a little moss convert a few weather- 

 beaten rocks into objects of beauty. And success is attainable 

 in almost every case, if sufficient attention be only paid to the 

 rules, which, it will be seen, are as sacred to the physical agents 

 which model our scenery as they ought to be to every gardener. 

 It is a trite observation to say that what pleases us in Nature is 

 the perfect fitness of things which pervades all her belongings. 

 The most rugged, abrupt, and even grotesque rock masses, when 

 untouched by man, never repel us by a sense of incongruity ; 



