REPRODUCTION OF NATURE 21 



we require for our present pursuit are of little other 

 use. An enthusiastic rockery-building neighbour of 

 ours has lately cleared out all the yards for a long 

 distance round, and would as eagerly run to earth 

 a pile of old and discarded building or road 

 material as others would rummage an old book- 

 stall for black-letter treatises and worm-eaten folios, 

 or pursue with reckless haste the fragrant fox. 



We would sorrowfully admit that something of 

 the nature of a rockery, or rather brickery, may be 

 sometimes seen compounded of old brickbats, lumps 

 of cement, clinkers, and masses of fused and vitrified 

 material from the brickfield ; but we trust our 

 readers will " not leave a stone unturned " to avert 

 such a lame ending of their early hopes, for while 

 we cannot quite deny that a well-planted clinkery 

 may be a good deal better than nothing at all, we 

 feel at least equally strongly that it must be looked 

 upon only as a possibility when nothing better can 

 be got together. 



One's idea must be to reproduce nature as far 

 as possible, and those who have revelled in the 

 glorious natural rock-gardens of Devonshire and 

 Switzerland will scarcely need to be reminded that 

 brickbats formed no part of their charm. Uvedale 

 Price, writing in 1796, says: "The source of the 

 superiority of good landscape gardening lies in the 

 artist's removing from the scene of his operations 

 whatever is hostile to its effect, or unsuited to its 



