PART L] CULTURAL 25 



plete success with very minute plants, and the stones pre- 

 vent excessive evaporation from the roots. A great number 

 of alpine plants may be grown on exposed level ground as 

 readily as the common Chamomile ; but there are, on the other 

 hand, not a few that require care to establish them, and there 

 are usually new kinds to be added to the collection, which, even 

 if vigorous ones, should be kept apart for a time. Therefore, in 

 every place where the culture of alpine plants is entered into 

 with zest, there ought to be a select spot on which to grow the 



Alpine Plants growing on the level ground. 



delicate, rare, and diminutive kinds. It should be fully exposed, 

 and while sufficiently elevated to secure perfect drainage and all 

 the effect desirable, should not be riven into miniature cliffs. 



SLUGS. 



Alpine plants will not perish from cold or heat or wet, if pro- 

 perly planted, but many of them are so small that they hardly 

 afford a full meal to a browsing slug, and often disappear during 

 a moist night. Now, as our gardens abound with slugs that play 

 havoc with many things colossal compared with our alpine 

 friends, it is clear that one of the main points is to guard against 

 slugs and snails, and, as far as possible, against worms. Mr 

 Backhouse fenced off the choicest parts of his rock-garden from 

 them by a very irregular little canal, so arranged that, while not 

 an eyesore, it is water-tight, and no slug can cross it. It thus 

 becomes an easier task to guard the plants from slugs than when 

 they are allowed to crawl in from all points of the compass. 

 But even with this precaution, it is necessary to search con- 

 tinually for snails and slugs ; and in wet weather the choicest 

 plants should be examined in the evening, or very early in the- 

 inorning; with a lantern, if at night. Sir Charles Isham, an 

 enthusiastic cultivator of rock-plants, says that he not only 

 protects toads, but does not forget to lay stones, so as to form 



