272 Horticidliiral Juttanda 



hung the torrent, here rollhig over three successive cataracts, 

 at the depth of at least two hundred feet below us ; and, 

 on the opposite side, the broken precipice rose until its top 

 was hid by white vapoury clouds that flitted past its face, 

 which nearly opposite us showed the track of an avalanche, 

 — pine trunks crushed, uprooted, broken, and hurried down 

 in every possible direction; every vestige of vegetation torn 

 away, and the bowels of the mountain bared : below, the 

 chaos, the " strages " (for I know no English word that ex- 

 presses it), half blocked up the narrow pass against and 

 through which the torrent fearfully urged its impetuous 

 course. 



To descend suddenly from great to small : the extreme 

 loveliness of the mossy carpet, and the air of gardenesque it 

 had, brought to my mind how little care our framers of 

 rockwork take to cherish those beautiful revellers in shade 

 and moisture, the lichens : no plants are so suitable for rock- 

 work, none look so well ; because none adapt themselves to 

 and preserve the contour of the stones so well, and none, 

 when once established, need so little care. I have found that 

 each plant of the common Z/ichen ventosus, when established, 

 will increase at least four inches in diameter every winter, 

 and that the best mode of getting them established is to 

 select plants from flat pieces of rock, with some of their 

 natural mould adhering; to plaster the stone on which the 

 lichen is to be planted, and likewise the bottom of the plant, 

 with a puddle of peat and clay; and to press the plant firmly 

 to the stone. The operation should be performed early in 

 the autumn, that they may be established before the drought 

 of the succeeding summer. As I have begun I will make a 

 little episode upon rockworks ; a branch of garden craft well 

 worth attention, and very often botched. 



Hockworks ought to imitate some natural arrangement of 

 rocks, with just so much of symmetry and artificial work about 

 them as will give a garden efi'ect. Now, they may be either 

 on broken and hilly ground ; in which case much artificial 

 arrangement will generally be injurious, if not impossible ; 

 or on a level surface, and devoid of rocks naturally. Rocks 

 are, I think, only found in two forms in level ground, 

 namely, as strata cropping out, and as boulder stones, and to 

 one of these two arrangements every artificial rockwork 

 should tend. Where the rockwork is to be constructed of 

 stratified stones, as calp, clay slate, limestone, &c., the former 

 arrangement will be the best; and it offers some advantages 

 over the other ; for the artificial strata may be made to dip to 

 the south, and broken into fissures, for plants or shrubs, ac- 



