3 
To him who has traveled in the Alps and has beheld the wealth 
of color in the higher pastures, alpine plants make special appeal. 
They recall memories of the days spent in the mountains, when, 
for the first time he saw them in all the glory of their wild beauty. 
As his alpine garden develops, there come to him day by day, 
memories of rocky fastnesses, bedecked with a flora whose per- 
sistence and vigor is well worthy of emulation. 
As we look at them in their stone creches, we marvel that such 
colors, and foliage-masses, can be found in such grim surround- 
ings. There is a charm about them that no other class of plants 
possesses. Other plants are equally beautiful, but they have not 
the setting. Our garden flowers may glow in their beauty, yet 
these mats of green, bedecked with bloom, appeal to us as does 
many another pretty living thing weaker than ourselves. 
Then again alpine gardens give one a pleasing sense of inti- 
macy with nature. Within a small area we have a little world 
of our own, and each species, requiring as it does our best efforts 
to supply its needs, gives us the greatest pleasure when it thrives 
under our tender care. 
Within the garden’s confines, we can establish hundreds of 
varieties of the most beautiful and interesting plants which 
hature with open, though often with reluctant hand, gives to us. 
If we are really in earnest, she assents to our removal of her 
treasures from their mountain homes into our imitation, though 
often no less acceptable, homes, among the rocks and in the cool 
deep crevices, which they must have to bring forth what is best 
in them. 
Here again we can enjoy the work of increasing them, either 
by division, cuttings or seeds, curbing aggressive interlopers, and 
inducing the shy and delicate ones to come forth and blossom as 
the rose. We become more and more interested, and make a 
closer study of the plants of the alpine flora, desiring to know 
more of their requirements, and their place in the economy of 
nature, 
In many rock gardens are grown bulbs, aquatics, herbaceous 
and other plants that do not properly belong there, and we may 
conclude that alpine has a wide application, when in truth it has 
