84 HOUSE, GARDEN, AND FIELD 



stones on end in a steep pile. Such stones look like broken 

 teeth, and cast shadows which hinder the growth of the 

 plants which are set in the interspaces. Lay the stones 

 nearly flat, and keep the slopes so gentle that they neither 

 intercept all the sunlight nor create torrents in heavy rain. 

 It is often advantageous to tilt the stones a little in such 

 a direction that they drain into the rockery and not away 

 from it. A rockery that starts abruptly out of level 

 ground is as flagrantly artificial as one that is stuck over 

 with spar or bits of grotesque limestone. Let the surface 

 continue the natural curves of the ground, if there are 

 such, or rise imperceptibly if there are none. Let the 

 stones be large, earth-fast, and all of that kind, whatever 

 t is, which comes most plentifully to hand. Let your 

 alpines creep among them at their own pleasure, except 

 where over-luxuriance calls for pruning. The reward of 

 judicious laying-out will be found in a modest array of 

 healthy and varied plants, set where we can enjoy them 

 every day. Of course we cannot hope for the charm of 

 the untouched natural experiment, the nook among the 

 hills where a little collection of wild flowers have found 

 the shelter, the moisture, and the light that suit them 

 best. We must be content with some one pleasant effect, 

 the rich colour of autumn cranesbill in a sunlit fissure, 

 mossy saxifrage carpeting a broad, damp stone, a dwarf 

 mountain ash rooted in a safe crevice, potentillas in their 

 summer glory of yellow and green, or cotoneasters with 

 leaves that redden at the approach of winter. Our en- 

 joyment of the flowers will often be heightened by the 

 recollection of some remote spot where we have seen them 

 flourish in perfection, an Alpine pass, it may be, or a stony 

 hillside in the fjaeld, or a rocky cleft in our own familiar 

 Lake-country. 



I wonder whether any botanist would have been saga- 

 cious enough to infer from the structure of the purple 

 saxifrage that it is the most ubiquitous of arctic plants, 

 showing itself wherever a patch of rock breaks the ice and 



