THE UP-BUILDING 27 



things road scrapings, cabbage stumps, old boots, 

 sardine tins that is deposited on land that one half- 

 year bears an intimation that rubbish may be shot 

 there, and the next half carries a row of genteel 

 villas. The rockery-builder could at least plead 

 that he was preserving the unities, and intimate his 

 belief that what was good enough to rear his 

 children on should suffice for the up-bringing of 

 a patch of ground ivy, the practical result being 

 that the youngsters would be anaemic, and the 

 vegetation etiolated, the equivalent botanically to 

 that washed-out, colourless state of affairs. 



Having laid discreetly our foundation series of 

 blocks, we may now proceed to add our second tier 

 of stones, and again carefully back these with earth, 

 and also judiciously fill up the interstices with good 

 mould. The stone facing and the earthen backing 

 should grow together. If a mound of earth be first 

 made, and then the stones stuck all over it, as we 

 sometimes see bleached almonds projecting boldly 

 and profusely from some triumph of culinary skill, 

 the effect is not happy, while the slope that the 

 earth naturally takes is somewhat too gentle. On 

 the other hand, if the building-up of the stones 

 alone be carried too far, independently of a backing 

 of earth, the intervals between the blocks never get 

 properly filled up with soil. When the roots of a 

 plant penetrate into one of these empty spaces they 

 quickly dry up, and the flower withers and decays. 



