ROCKERIES 281 



wall. There should be no precise or systematic arrange- 

 ment. Heap the stones together as carefully as possi- 

 ble. The larger the stones are the, better. Fill between 

 them with earth from the woods or the pasture. You 

 will find many kinds of wild plants springing up in this 

 soil, after a little, and these plants are the very ones 

 necessary to give the place a natural look. I have 

 never been pleased with any rockery filled with any- 

 thing but wild plants, because there is an inconsistency 

 in the idea of a rockery over which plants from the 

 garden and greenhouse grow. The rockery, in the true 

 sense of the term, suggests perfect freedom from every- 

 thing conventional and cultivated. Anything not in 

 accordance with this idea will interfere with the 

 successful carrying out of the plan. 



Of course the idea is to imitate nature. But the 

 truth is, it is the hardest thing in the world to do to 

 imitate nature successfully. She never has a plan. 

 She works from instinct. Most of us lack her instinct 

 of beauty, and her ability to create it without rules or 

 patterns, and what we do in imitation of her is quite 

 likely to bear as little resemblance to her work as the 

 first drawings of a child resemble the work of a prac- 

 ticed hand. If it is necessary for the picture on the 

 slate to be labeled "This is a horse," or "a cow," as 

 the fancy of the amateur artist prompts, it would be 

 equally necessary in most instances to label most 

 attempts at rockery building so that no mistake need 

 be made by the beholder, for one is about as true to 

 nature as the other. 



In attempting to imitate nature in anything, it is 

 necessary, first of all, if you would do good work, to 

 take lessons of her. Do you want your rockery to 

 remind you of some wild nook that you have seen in 

 the woods? Then go to that spot, and sit down and 

 study the heap of rocks and the plants growing among 



