Chap. IV.] THE PAEO DES BUTTES CHAUMONT. 



69 



garden such a chance of having walls of rock-plants almost as 

 interesting as those one meets with on an Alpine pass, and yet 

 it is entirely lost. By leaving chinks here and there and filling 

 them with turf; hy leaving the face of the high rock sloping in 

 places, so that they would be well exposed to the rain ; by having 

 little streamlets trickling over the face of the clifi's here and 

 there ; by scattering a few packets of seeds over the surface in 

 spring, a rock vegetation of great beauty could soon be obtained. 

 The great silvery Saxifrages of the Pyrenees and the Alps might 

 have spread forth their rosettes here, while little Harebells, 

 Thymes, Eock-brooms, Stone-crops, Houseleeks of many kinds. 



'»&■>■ 



: LhM 



Unmutilated Shrubs on Tur/.—Parc des Suites Chaumont. 



with hundreds of the prettiest plants of northern and temperate 

 climes, might also have been grown. Now all is daubed over and 

 plantless, save a bit of wiry grass in some few spots ; and the 

 face of the high rocks is only suggestive of danger. 



This results from leaving the face of the higher part of the 

 rocks almost vertical, so depriving vegetation of all chance of 

 foothold. But the system of plastering, instead of having broken 

 isolated clumps of rock, is still more to blame for the crater-hke 

 bareness of this enormous mass. With plastered rock, and a hole 

 left here and there in which a plant may dwindle or perish, there 

 is no chance of any but a stone-yard effect-one-fourth the 



