216 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



stream shall come Lodoring, to disperse itself in runnels 

 over the shoulder, and to leap thence, down a steep 

 precipice, into a little lake below. If you are, by some 

 monstrous favouritism of the gods, blessed with such a 

 golden possibility as this, I will smash the Tenth Com- 

 mandment first, and hurl its fragments at your head ; 

 but I will then be generous and confess that you will 

 have the loveliest bog-garden in the country, if you fill 

 the open space between your cliffs with stone-chips and 

 light soil, surfacing it, too, with larger flakes and debris 

 of the mountain limestone. And then, and then, on that 

 rock-strewn shoulder, permeated with running moisture, 

 incessantly, violently draining downwards, you will plant 

 every glorious little bog-plant of the highest Alps and 

 Himachal, and they will glory in so delightful a repro- 

 duction of their own chosen dwelling-places in the hills. 

 Thus, if you are lucky in avoiding the neighbourhood of 

 large incongruous features, such as trees, houses, or big 

 shrubs, you may possibly attain the illusion of a high 

 lonely corner of the mountains — and will, in any case, 

 certainly be much closer to it than if you merely have 

 your bog at the bottom of a hollow, with copse and 

 woodland plants all round. But this cherished dream of 

 mine presupposes so many things, as to stand beyond 

 realisation by the general run of gardeners. The ordinary 

 scheme is good enough, and only less good than the 

 best. 



But wherever you liave your bog, I advise great atten- 

 tion to the surfacing. It is extraordinary to me the way 

 gardeners cherish excessive stoniness in big stones (which 

 are oppressive and ugly in effect), and utterly neglect the 

 beauty and value of small broken chips. I am not now 

 talking of the actual moraine-garden, which is too impor- 

 tant thus lightly to be dismissed ; but the ordinary rock- 

 garden slope or pocket — the flat surface of the bog, are a 



