SOUTH BANTASKINE 



Yes, the foreground is greatly altered ; and the 

 great central plain of Scotland, which lies around, 

 is tunnelled with mines, punctuated with tall black 

 chimneys and scored with rattling railroads ; but 

 beyond all this to the north stand, as of yore, the 

 domes and crests, the cones and cusps, of the Gram- 

 pians and nearer Ochils. 



The spring flush of colour was on the wane and 

 the summer splendour not fully aglow, when I saw 

 this garden ; nevertheless, the scene was very fair ; 

 for these ladies aim at the fulfilment of Bacon's 

 ideal when he wrote " I do hold it, in the royal 

 ordering of gardens, there ought to be gardens for 

 all the months of the year; in which, severally, 

 things of beauty may be then in season." 



To attain this end the guardians of this place 

 of flowers rely on the commonest material tulips, 

 hyacinth, narcissus, arabis, myosotis and wallflower 

 in spring lupins, roses, poppies, pansies and such 

 like in summer. The botanist's borders are apt to 

 appeal only to the elect ; where decorative effect 

 is the aim there is nothing to equal the old 

 favourites. 



More ambitious, and more laborious to be carried 

 out, is the design which these ladies have under- 

 taken in converting a disused quarry into an alpine 

 garden. It will be a rockwork on a Cyclopean 

 scale. A vast vertical cliff of carboniferous sand- 

 stone bounds it on one side, at the foot of which 

 is a fine jumble of fallen boulders and shattered 

 L 89 



