262 STUDIES IN GARDENING 



grown in the past for their scent alone than are grown 

 now. Indeed, we have become so indifferent to scent 

 and all its delightful associations, that it is scarcely 

 considered a fault in a new Rose or Carnation that 

 it should be scentless. 



It may be that the present fashion for Alpine flowers 

 has increased our indifference to scent, for few of them 

 have much smell, and yet their associations are so 

 strong and delightful that it is no wonder we should 

 overlook this deficiency in them. Probably these 

 associations, more even than their beauty, are the 

 cause of their present popularity. It is only natural 

 that when men take a delight in mountains they 

 should also delight in the flowers that grow upon 

 them. There are thousands of Englishmen now who 

 think of their holidays always in connection with the 

 Swiss mountains, and for whom, therefore, everything 

 associated with those mountains has a peculiar de- 

 light. They caimot have those mountains in their 

 own gardens, though in one famous rock garden there 

 is a miniature Matterhorn; but luckily they can, by 

 the kindness of nature, have many of the mountain 

 flowers. And these by reason of their character and 

 beauty, in which they are so distinct from the flowers 

 of the lowlands, do very powerfully call to mind their 

 mountain homes. They are the only "outlandish" 

 flowers in which we take delight because of their native 

 associations, which seem to us wild, even in our own 

 gardens, and which, therefore, we are as unwilling to 

 associate with any kind of formality as our own Prim- 

 roses and Bluebells and Honeysuckle. Many of them 



