258 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



holding moisture, the flying and bird-carried seeds 

 will soon turn it into a garden well-nigh as gay 

 as those that fringe the village street. On such 

 roofs we have seen masses of poppies in their 

 gorgeous scarlet, and wheat and oats ripening in 

 the sunshine, to say nothing of mosses, fungi, ferns, 

 and all sorts of other vegetable growths, many of 

 which entirely puzzle us to account for however 

 they got there. 



As such roof-gardens imply decaying beams 

 rotting beneath them, they are, from a sanitary 

 point of view, to be regretted. The lady who 

 comes over one fine afternoon with her paint-box 

 to sketch so picturesque a "bit," and the old 

 cottager who spends her life beneath these musty 

 ceilings, regard the matter from different stand- 

 points, and the aesthetic person must kindly stand 

 aside while the man with prosaic piping, tiles, and 

 so forth comes at last to the fore, the recurring 

 outbreaks of fever, diphtheria, and the like having 

 become somewhat of a scandal that has consider- 

 ably smirched the good name of this Arcadian 

 spot. 



How some Chinaman first discovered the suc- 

 culent charm of roasted pork has passed into 

 history. It was afterwards found that a much 

 simpler method was as fully efficacious, and in 

 like manner we can grow in our rock-garden 

 noble plants of house-leek, to make no mention 



