The Small Rock-Garden. I3I 
accumulated towards the north, or west and north, 
according to situation, and should rise chiefly 
towards the north or north-west as the case may be 
under the exigencies of position. Where there is 
room, and the rockery does not directly abut upon 
any constructional wall, or immediately adjoin any 
adjacent wall or fence, it may die down gradually 
to the ground-line on the north, larger stones being 
then employed there than in most of its construction 
in order to ensure strong support to steeper slopes. 
The same treatment should be adopted on the west 
when that aspect is unfavourable to cultivation. 
If, however, the rockery top is comparatively flat, 
while little space is available, and therefore all space 
is valuable, the west and north sides may very 
suitably be sustained by rough dry-walling, inclined 
sufficiently to allow of the insertion in its open 
interstices and joints of shade-loving plants, such as 
Ramondias, and of the smaller ferns, such as 
Asplenium ruta-muraria and A. trichomanes, Ceterach 
officinarum, and Cystopteris fragilis. 
More or less vertical dry-walling is also useful 
when the rockery directly ranges along any wood- 
fence, trellis, or house wall. On no side of the 
rockery open to approach must the slope be so 
slight or the batter so great as to remove the higher 
surface of the adjacent soil far from the eye or hand, 
since these positions afford the most fitting situation 
for very minute or early-flowering plants. 
The great aim in forming such a piled-up mass of 
earth as has been indicated is to provide a central 
reservoir for the receipt and storage of water under 
K 2 
