1 2 THE ALPINE FLORA 



or rocky cirques. Shelter from the biting spring winds 

 must at any cost be given ; best by the lie of the land ; 

 next best, by an old wall, which may be inartistic but is 

 honestly utilitarian, and does not injure the plants ; worst, 

 by heavy shrubs or trees, which are directly injurious. 

 All slopes so protected should be open, airy and gradual, 

 articulated here and there with bold masses of homo- 

 geneous stone; the stratification of each slope must be 

 similar. A simple but almost ideal form would be a pair 

 of ranges, one granite, one of chalk, each diversified with 

 nooks and bays and crannies, the gentler, roomier slope 

 facing the south-east. The upper end should be built 

 up high, to guard off the north-east gales, and to retain 

 the water feeding a stream in the underlying valley. 

 Beneath the pond the valley should boldly fork and in 

 each fork be built a moraine of either rock, with a 

 hidden sluice connected with the reservoir above, to 

 maintain in spring and summer a constant filmy overflow 

 of water warmed by the sun and to deny the same in 

 leaden days of autumn or of winter. Ambition would 

 suggest a secret conduit along and under each watershed, 

 breaking out where fancy moved into other regulative 

 sluices, each controlling the humidity of its peculiar 

 moraine. Does the reader enquire of this ' moraine ' ? 

 It is the arcanum of our cult, and Mr. Farrer is the 

 hierophant, in charming volumes are destined to become 

 classics of garden literature. 1 



These 'moraines' at once call to mind two cardinal 

 points of good cultivation one still only half-understood, 



1 On 'scale' and 'planning' readers will do well to consult an excellent 

 paper in the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, Nov. 1910, by 

 A. Glutton Brock. 



