CHAPTER II. 



Alpine Plants in Nature. 



People who have the means and leisure for travel 

 derive great pleasure and improved health from 

 visiting the Alpine plants in their native homes. The 

 charming pictures of floral beauty, the pure, dry, cool 

 air of the mountains, have an inspiring and invigorating 

 influence. 



From the garden point of view, the principal ad- 

 vantage of studying the plants in a state of nature is 

 that true ideas can be formed of their structure, 

 development, conditions of gro>%ih and general require- 

 ments. Lessons are learned of the arrangement of 

 stones and the tasteful disposal of the plants. 



It is safe to prophesy that as the years pass increasing 

 numbers of flower-lovers will visit the Pyrenees and 

 Alps in spring in order to see the mountain plants in 

 Nature. The theatres, pictiu'e-galleries and churches 

 of Florence and Rome will no longer monopolise the 

 time and interest of tourists. Travellers will learn that 

 Nature's handiwork in the form of flowers has at least 

 an equal interest to man's craftsmanship in the shape 

 of ** brasses " — that '* culture " may be acquired on 

 the mountain sides as weU as in art museums. And 

 there is the additional advantage that the lessons 



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