CHAPTER XI 



ALPINE FIELDS FOR ENGLAND 



" En multipliant la beaute, en donnant au nioude des humbles le 

 sens de la sincere beaute^ vous lui aurez fait la plus exquise et 

 peut-ctre la plus utile des charites." — Pierbe Vignot. 



The title of this chapter will come as a shock to 

 some, and they will think it an insult to, and an 

 outrage upon. Nature's existing efforts for English 

 meadows. In my previous volume, " Alpine 

 Flowers and Gardens," I ventured some mild 

 wonder " that more attempts are not made in 

 England to create Alpine pastures," and I added : 

 *' Alpine rock-works we have in hundreds, but a 

 stretch of meadow-land sown or planted with 

 Alpine field-flowers seems as yet to be but rarely 

 attempted." And of this mild wonder some of my 

 critics fell foul, and I was told that I seemed " to 

 forget the peculiar beauty of English pasture as it 

 is, with its buttercups, cowslips, and orchis, daisies 



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