The Small Rock-Garden. 125 
No more valuable means of transition is possessed 
than that afforded by the many varieties of China 
Rose and allied forms. 
Should, however, the need of shelter or the desire 
for an unbroken vista suggest it, Alpines may be 
grown well and absolutely unobtrusively by means 
of the entirely sunk rockery. Whatever its sur- 
roundings, it is essential that the rockery should be 
secured from strong winds and from the north. 
Exposure to cold by itself alone is little harmful to 
the majority of Alpines, and such as need protection 
from it can be easily provided for by means of 
sheltering stones, but a wind-swept exposure is 
speedily injurious and frequently fatal, especially 
when to the effects of mechanical violence is added 
the more searching evil of chilling or parching blasts 
and currents over a soil sodden and a vegetation 
enfeebled by the clinging damp and persistent rains 
of our long wintry season; nor are partial and 
variable draughts less surely, if more insidiously, 
hurtful. 
Such shelter as must be given, need not be ex- 
tensive, but it must be efficient, as well for the 
appearance and enjoyment of the rockery as for its 
welfare ; and it should be complete enough to secure 
freedom from draught without confinement, for the 
prevailing wind and the north must be shut off, but 
the rockery must not be shut in. The amount of 
shelter required will vary greatly according to 
situation, whether on high land or hill-side, in un- 
dulating country or in the midst of wide, low levels, 
well planted or treeless, inland or by the sea. All 
