ALPINE FL WERS. Part I. 



giving to alpine plants a treatment quite different to what has 

 hitherto been in vogue will be fully seen. The' only sound prin- 

 ciple generally employed is that of elevating the plants above the 

 level of the ground. Naturally protected in winter by a dry- 

 bed of thick snow, some of them cannot exist on our level wet 

 soils in that season. But this principle of elevation should in all 

 cases be accompanied by the more essential one of giving the 

 plants abundant means, of rooting deeply into good and per- 

 fectly firm soil, sandy, gritty, peaty, or mingled with broken 

 stone, as the case may be. How not to do this is capitally illus- 



Fig. 2. — The great Pyrenean Saxifrage, one, foot in diara. (From a photograph.} 



trated by persons who stuff a little soil into a chink between the 

 stones in a rockery, and insert some minute alpine plant in that. 

 There is usually a vacuum between the stones and the soil 

 beneath them, and the first dry week sees the death of the 

 plant — that of course not being attributed to the right cause. 

 Precisely the same end would have come of it if the experiment 

 had been tried on some alp bejewelled with Gentians and Pri- 

 mulas ! Every one of these two brilliant families should have 

 means of rooting a yard or more into a suitable medium. 

 Thus we should not pay so much attention to the stones or 

 rocks as to the earth from which they protrude, There are cer- 

 tainly alpine plants that do not require a deep soil, or what is 

 usually termed soil at all ; but all require a firm roomy medium 

 for the roots. 



