220 THE NEW GARDENING 



and good. Soil may be packed against it without hesita- 

 tion. If it is a wooden fence there is more trouble. Damp 

 soil cannot lie against a fence for long without the timber 

 rotting, and then come bulging, breakage and disputes 

 with a possibly cantankerous neighbour. The fence 

 must be reinforced, either with flat stones or stout planks, 

 the former for choice. 



The suburban gardener has an advantage over his 

 rural confrere in that he can visit builders' yards, and 

 the offices of public bodies, with a better chance of pick- 

 ing up at a moderate price a few old flat paving-stones. 

 The best of these can be used as buffers between soil and 

 fence, while the remainder can be used to pave and 

 the more irregularly the better the ground near the 

 rockery. Between the broken, irregular stones of this 

 " pavement " plants may be set, which will carry the 

 effect of the rockery beyond its immediate confines. 



Another plan which has been adopted of reinforcing 

 a fence for the purpose of supporting earth is to drive 

 in 4-inch quartering, attach laths, and nail on house 

 slates. This is both cheap and durable, while the fence 

 is strengthened instead of weakened. 



The suburbanist will do well, having got so far, to put 

 himself in communication with the nearest nurseryman 

 who has any standing as a grower of hardy plants, with 

 a view to getting a supply of suitable soil and stones. I 

 should advise him to strain a point with respect to the soil, 

 and buy good, turfy, fibrous loam. One sees stacks of 

 turf rotting down in the grounds of some of the sub- 

 urban florists, and nothing could be better than the 

 fibrous, flaky stuff from these heaps when they have 

 been stacked for the better part of a year. With about 

 a third of leaf-mould it will make a splendid mixture for 

 rock plants. 



