160 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



other such small delights may have their paradise. And, 

 for these, it is best to make the elaborate excavation and 

 concrete basin that I have described — not as an absolute 

 necessity, but as a safeguard and preliminary precaution, 

 which will make them a great deal safer and happier than 

 they are otherwise liable to be — besides securing to them 

 a suitable, reserved territory of their own, where their 

 special convenience is consulted, and from which all the 

 profane crowd of larger plants may be held in banish- 

 ment. 



And now I will give free rein to my ideal, and will 

 conceive myself lord of a vast bog-garden, sloping richly 

 away from a high crest of copse and rock to a choice 

 flat space for delicacies far below. And my bank is now 

 full-fed with fat soil, and its river flows down from the 

 upper corner, winding through the valley, but touching 

 each bank, even to the crest, with the benign influence 

 of its moisture. For, where water flows, thence water 

 always climbs, and the banks on either side a stream are 

 always so far tinged with damp that they can never 

 know drought, and therefore may fairly be included in 

 the bog-garden, though their soil, to the touch, is merely 

 fresh and cool, even in the driest summer heats. So 

 into my happy valley parched Thirst can never enter. 

 And now, to take first my choice of big things for the 

 banks, what shall I begin to plant ? 



And at once comes up at my call the Queen-race of the 

 bog-garden. For, though many and diverse are the dwell- 

 ings of the Lilies — though Heldreichi and chalcedonicum 

 blaze on the hills of Greece, though tenuifolium takes plea- 

 sure in hot, dry, dusty soil, yet, as a race, the Lilies are 

 plants of the upper reaches of the bog, delighting in very 

 rich, well-drained slopes, kept always cool by the influence 

 of water at their feet. Then let the high places of my 

 bank be filled with gorgeous auratum, Martagon, pom- 



