The Small Rock-Garden. 143 
flower after the end of June in well-considered 
positions, as the floral display is then so much re- 
duced, and every plant that flowers should be made 
to tell, even by its isolation. A store of young 
material should always be maintained to replace 
inevitable annual loss and overgrown subjects ; and 
no hesitation should be shown in the remorseless 
reduction or removal of all straggling and too 
aggressive specimens each autumn. 
Just as it is false economy to stint expenditure on 
labour and material too closely while making the 
rockery, so it is false economy afterwards not to 
provide all that may be needed for potting and 
planting in connection with it, for, in both instances, 
the lessened outlay on plants after the first stocking 
will speedily begin to do more than compensate 
for the initial cost involved in provision for their 
successful cultivation and propagation. Hence, care 
should be taken to have in stock from the first all 
the materials required in this connection; a sufficient 
supply of fibrous loam from the top spit of a pasture 
as well as more retentive loam such as is available 
in unrivalled quality in the red soil of a limestone 
district ; peat both of a hard, fibrous and of a sandy, 
heathy nature, together with a plentiful supply of 
clean river sand, coarse Bedfordshire sand, and last, 
but not least, an abundance of sandstone grit in 
broken cubes and finer, siftings, together with some 
limestone grit, a little old mortar-rubbish, sphagnum, 
charcoal, and burnt earth. Road-scrapings, although 
often used and indeed often useful, are yet material 
to be very wary about, being so often infested with 
