CHAPTER XI 



The Rock Garden 



THOSE persons who like imported products of every kind will 

 prefer to call these Alpine Gardens. There are so many parts 

 of the United States where rocks abound that it is very peculiar 

 that more really good rock gardens are not to be seen. 



We do not wish to advocate the establishment of a garden of 

 this sort where the rocks must be moved a great distance. We feel 

 that such a feature as this in the prairie region is rather incongruous; 

 besides, the cost is prohibitive. There are, however, certain regions 

 which are well adapted for informal rockeries. Central Park at the 

 center of New York City has wonderful outcrops of granite, in which 

 are all sorts of crevices and holes for plants. Rochester, N. Y., has 

 an abundance of peculiarly weathered limestone formations which 

 are very useful. Each vicinity has a different sort of native rock 

 formation, so that the type of planting will greatly differ. Rocks 

 should hardly be placed for a definite display of themselves, for they 

 should be the background. 



We have only to visit Japan or read of her gardens; they are rock 

 gardens; they are really rock landscapes. In them we find that 

 rocks are as important as plants. We discover their arrangement 

 studied. We hear that imperial edicts have been sent out from time 

 to time prohibiting tbe price which may be paid for rock. It seems 

 that during one of the dynasties the interest in foreign rocks was so 

 great that such an edict was necessary. If we should remark to the 

 Japanese gardener that a collection of rocks such as he has in his 

 landscape is mere geology, he would ask us what difference it made 

 so long as the whole was beautiful and meant something. He would 

 continue to say that our own American gardens do not have any real 

 significance. Few of the Japanese gardens in America have the real 

 essential features. The American wants to use the Japanese material, 

 but not understanding the Oriental arrangement he prefers an arrange- 

 ment which he has imagined is the real way the Japanese gardens 

 look. For one who cannot read Japanese, two pages of a Japanese 

 book look enough alike to be equally well covered with interesting 

 characters. So with a garden; one which is American using Japanese 

 plants and receptacles looks superficially like the real Japanese arrange- 

 ment. 



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