174 FLOWER-FIELDS OF ALPINE SWITZERLAND 



If we are to have some kind of boundary- 

 mark to our field, let it be by preference a low, 

 mortarless wall of fairly large rough stones or 

 pieces of rock built up with earth — a sort of 

 rockwork wall. These walls may be met with 

 almost anywhere in the Swiss mountains, and 

 are frequently composed of fragments of rock 

 which at one time and another have been strewn 

 about the fields by rockfalls or avalanches. They 

 often become the home of brilliant masses of 

 such plants as Sa'ponaria ocymoides, Silene rupes- 

 tiis, Gypsophila rep ens, Helianthemum vulgar e, 

 Arabis alpina, Calamintha alpina, and Cerastium 

 alpinum, thus adding considerably to the gaiety 

 and charm of the fields — a gaiety and charm 

 which in the case of these walls lasts well into 

 the autumn. 



Some difficulty may be experienced over the 

 grass which is to accompany the meadow-flowers. 

 Indeed, it is an objection usually raised whenever 

 I have broached the subject of Alpine fields to 

 gardening enthusiasts ; they fear that English 

 meadow-grass would overwhelm the stranger- 

 flowers by leaving them no room to breathe. But 

 is not this obstacle one rather of hasty imagining 

 than of reality? We are not proposing to put 



