DRY WALLING 91 



taking council with Nature, not indeed to divert 

 walls from their normal province of seclusion and 

 shelter and support, but to use them actually as 

 planting ground. Anyone with an observant eye 

 must have noticed how plants of most unlikely 

 character will sometimes take root and flourish in 

 the apparently uninviting brickwork of an old wall. 

 We wonder how it could come about that an acorn, 

 hidden perhaps by some jackdaw in secretive mood, 

 should germinate and find nourishment and foot- 

 hold in such unlikely quarters ; yet there is the 

 evidence of the living oak, sturdy though dwarfed, 

 growing as it has been known to do for many a 

 long year out of the masonry of some old church 

 tower that we know well. We can all recall 

 instances of the kind, of forest trees, like Scotch 

 fir, it may be, or vigorous shrubs, like elder, tak- 

 ing root and in some unaccountable fashion living 

 and thriving upon the substance of a wall, having 

 no other visible means of subsistence, and yet, 

 in most cases, with an air of happy thriftiness 

 about them that seems to say that they would 

 not exchange their sparse living aloft for the fattest 

 pastures that might be offered them on level 

 ground. 



It was this contented cheeriness and gaiety of 

 mien, no doubt, that originated the idea of wall 

 gardening. Some of us may remember when, in 

 our eagerness to follow Nature in all her methods, 

 we tried to dislodge crumbling pieces of mortar 

 or to break away fragments of brick or stone, re- 

 placing them with soil wherein to sow the seeds 

 or plant the seedlings which we fain hoped might 



