A FEW NOTES ON ROCK-GARDENS. 
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running out from bank or slope, or in that of ridge or mound. 
In most regards I have found simple stone-strewn banks answer 
admirably. The unpretentious simplicity of the plan is really 
in their favour, and they are even more suggestive of nature 
than are many or most of our more ambitious rockeries. But 
in one particular they may be defective unless precaution be 
used. The water runs from them too rapidly and easily. To 
obviate this, either the slope should be made very gradual, or 
the surface should be so broken and uneven (e.g.^ by rudely 
^' pocketing " it) that the rain is caught. I may here say 
that while, of course, it is not difficult to adapt the planting 
to any aspect, a cool aspect (east or even north) is more than 
usually desirable in such cases if Alpines furnish the banks in 
question. 
I need not stay to ridicule the grotesque erections of rubbish 
in burrs, cinder, bricks, and the like, which not infrequently pass 
for rockeries— though the abundance of ridicule which has been 
cast upon them has not yet secured their disappearance. Suffice 
it to say this, that all that is wanted culturally is a body of good, 
deep, gritty, suitable soil, exceptionally well drained, in an airy 
and exposed position, shaped naturally, however simply, and, if 
may be, faced with stones, large or small, wholly or partially, 
to diminish evaporation and to help to equalise temperature. 
Many existing "borders" answer, or can readily be made to 
answer, these requirements, and to form a good and sufficient 
rockery in which even the choicest Alpines may be grown as well 
as in the largest and most costly rock-garden. 
In districts where stone is scarce, it is not uncommon to use, 
instead of it, blocks of slag or cinder from foundry or factory. 
Carefully chosen as regards shape and size, and then dipped in 
or otherwise coated with cement, these may be found a fair 
substitute. But I find them never a wholly satisfactory one, 
plants generally disliking proximity to them. The reason I 
suspect to be that such substances generally contain acids or 
other elements noxious to plant life, which can rarely if ever be 
wholly imprisoned or neutralised by any cement covering. 
I have only to add in this connection a suggestion or two 
derived from experience. The Scotchman who was commending 
" honesty as the best policy " enforced his recommendation, you 
will recall, by the assurance that he had " tried baith " ; and I too 
