**How could such sweet and wholesome hours 

 Be reckoned, but with herbs and flowers!" 



— The Garden— Anbbbw Marvell. 



CHAPTER XVII 



Rock Gardens and Thetr Plants 



THERE are four distinct kinds of rock garden; 

 or perhaps it is better to say that there are 

 four ways in which rocks and stones are used 

 to provide special conditions wherein only 

 special plants will grow, the rocks being utilized 

 equally with the vegetation to produce an effect. 

 The first alone is entitled to be called a rock 

 garden, the second is a wall garden, the third a 

 stone or flagged garden and the fourth, which is 

 not a garden at all, is the rockery. Of this last 

 I will say in passing that garden effect is really 

 unthought of in connection with it, since it is 

 essentially a botanist's or plant collector's speci- 

 men cabinet, in which his treasures are pre- 

 served (and maintained alive) even as the geolo- 

 gist's are stored in a wooden cabinet in his 

 library or laboratory. 



The rock garden is perhaps the most im- 

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