300 The Wild Garden. 



grown anywhere by excavating a bed and filling it 

 with peat : but our great object should be to make 

 the most of natural advantages, and as many per- 

 sons must have gardens suited for what are called 

 American plants, they would find it worth while to 

 devote a spot to the British Heaths and their 

 varieties. 



Nearly allied to them we have the interesting 

 bog Vacciniums, which may be cultivated in marshy 

 or peaty ground. To these belong the cranberry, 

 bilberry, and whortleberry ; and for some of these 

 and the American kinds, people have ere now made 

 artificial bogs in their gardens. The little creeping 

 evergreen, Arctostaphylos Uva-ursi, or bearberry, is 

 very neat in the garden or on rockwork. It is found 

 in hilly districts in Scotland, northern England, and 

 Ireland, and maybe had from the nurserymen. Then 

 the Marsh Andromeda (A. polifolia), found chiefly in 

 central and northern England, bears very pretty 

 pink flowers, and grows freely in a bog or peat-bed. 

 The very small English Azalea procumbens is also 

 an interesting native which some people try to cul- 

 tivate, and where they succeed nothing can be more 

 satisfactory, for the plant forms a cushiony bush not 

 more than a couple of inches high. In Britain it is 

 found only in the Scotch highlands. I have only 



