238 A BOOK ABOUT THE GARDEN. 



a stately terraced mansion, and where a refined taste 

 selects and groups them. 



But, speaking of these gardens generally, I was 

 surprised and disappointed not to find in a large 

 proportion, even where there was evidently no lack of 

 information or of means, those more recent additions 

 to the modes and to the materials of horticulture 

 which have enlarged our happiness and enriched our 

 stores. No gardener, for example, has made experi- 

 ments, however small, in the formation of a rock 

 garden and the culture of alpine plants without 

 bringing a new gladness to himself and others. Of 

 course, when I speak of a gardener I mean a man who 

 utilizes his eyes and his ears ; who in forming a 

 rockery does not set himself to rectify and improve 

 Nature by putting stones on end which she had 

 placed lengthwise ; who does not take it for granted 

 that because plants grow out of rocks they have no 

 soil within for their roots ; who does not select a clay 

 soil for flowers which repose in sand, nor a shady 

 place for those which only thrive in sunshine ; does 

 not set a giant amid dwarfs and allow him to over- 

 power them all (ah me, have I not seen a variegated 

 periwinkle, in cruel alliance with some alpine straw- 

 berries, tyrannically appropriating a large space 

 which had once a choice and varied assortment ?), 

 but thinks beforehand and watches always. To such 

 a man the introduction of the alpine garden, with its 

 early and exquisite diversities of form and colour, is a 

 new and large delight. It is a new language to a 

 clever linguist, wherein, when he has learned it from 

 A to Z (from anemone to zephyranthes), he finds 



