CHAPTER XI 



THE BOG GARDEN 



ANOTHER outcome of the revolt against the formal 

 gardening of the past is to be found 'in the interest 

 now taken in the cultivation of marsh plants. 



In all thinly peopled countries there are vast 

 tracts of wet, water-logged land, absolutely useless 

 in their normal condition, and even hostile to 

 human life ; where, nevertheless, many of the most 

 singular and characteristic types of the world's 

 flora find a congenial home. In England and Ire- 

 land they have been called bogs ; in Scotland hags 

 or mosses ; in the New World swamps ; on the 

 South African continent vleis; but everywhere, be 

 it bog, swamp, or vlei, it is at one season or an- 

 other a garden of flowers. 



Very seldom now, in our own land, can we get 

 away from civilisation into the heart of solitude, 

 except, it may be, in hidden recesses of Dartmoor 

 or, northwards, in some forgotten or inaccessible 

 corner where plough and drain pipes have not yet 

 been or cannot be set to work; and we dare not 

 grudge the high farming which has turned ague- 

 stricken marsh or reeking quagmire into wholesome 

 arable land. Yet it is delightful, on occasion, to 

 find oneself in some lone, wild spot, far out of 



