XIV INTRODUCTION. 



and size, ferns gathered from every dime, and exotics from 

 all parts of the world ; but mention the name of some long- 

 discovered native of North Europe or Siberia, hardy as Ivy 

 and beautiful as numbers of highly popular exotics, and in 

 all but extremely rare cases the owner will never even have 

 heard of it ! Visit any of our large country gardens, and pro- 

 bably the first thing that will be triumphantly told you is the 

 number of scores of thousands of plants "bedded out" every 

 year, though no system ever devised has had a more miserable 

 effect on our gardens. Even our great botanic gardens, 

 which ought beyond all others to show us the capabilities of 

 the plants of our own climes, do not exhibit anything better 

 than the gaudiness of great masses of flowers of the same 

 colour on, the one hand, and the repulsive formality resulting 

 from scientific arrangements of plants on the other. That 

 an infinitely Superior system is not only practicable but easy, 

 I have contended in various journals since I began to write ; 

 that it is so in at least one almost utterly neglected branch 

 of horticulture is, I hope, now proved ; and that it is so in 

 others, I hope equally to show in due time; 



The numbers of amateurs who spend small fortunes on 

 hothouse plants, and who generally have not a dozen of the 

 equally beautiful flowers of northern and temperate regions 

 in their gardens, might grow an abundance of them with 

 a tithe of the expense required to fill a glass-house , with 

 costly Mexican or Indian orchids. Our botanical and great 

 public gardens, in which alpine plants are usually found in 

 frames, in obscure corners, or perhaps a few dozen of in- 

 different kinds on some absurdly formed rockwork, half 

 hidden under trees and shrubs, or a canvas roller-blind, as 

 if very properly ashamed of itself, might each exhibit a 

 beautiful alpine-garden, at half the expense and trouble 



