THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
23 
these, instead of being alpine, are arenarious, sea-side, or bog-plants. 
Alpine plants are almost universally very low, bushy, and evergreen. 
They are very often planted on rockwork, or in other suitable 
situations, or they may be grown in pots plunged to the rim in 
sand or coal-ashes, within a cool pit, so constructed that a suffi- 
cient protection from frost and wet may be afforded them during 
winter ; for, however strange it may appear, plants from the frozen 
regions of Spitzbergen, Melville Island, and other pai’ts, will not 
survive our winters without a certain amount of protection. In their 
native habitats they are protected from intense frost and damp by 
thick coverings of snow, during which period they are also con- 
fined to total darkness. The. atmosphere which surrounds them is 
of light or thin air, almost always charged with vapour ; and the 
soil in which they grow is generally soft, black, and peat-like, form- 
ing a thin stratum on rock, or filling up the chinks of rocks or stones, 
and always moist. Art imitates these circumstances by putting 
such plants in small pots of peat or bog earth, well drained by 
gravel, or scarcely drained at all, or mixed with stones, or with 
sand, according to the habitation to be imitated. The pots are kept 
during winter under glass in frames, or pits, in a situation exposed 
only to the morning sun ; and in summer they are removed to a full 
northern exposure, or screens are placed so as to produce this effect 
in their winter situation. In further imitation of these conditions, 
the pits containing alpine plants are covered about the end of 
November, with thin-boarded or felt shutters, which sufficiently ex- 
clude the extent of frost that would be injurious to them, and keep 
them comparatively dry and nearly deprived of light. Towards 
spring, air and light must be admitted gradually, as it were in imi- 
tation of the progressive melting of the snow, until, by the begin- 
ning of March, vegetation begins to reVive in the plants, when all 
the light possible is afforded them, covering them only during very 
cold or frosty nights : afterwards the covers are removed entirely. 
During winter, on fine days, the covers should be taken off, that 
the plants may be examined, and all dampness removed ; for, it 
should be remembered, the artificial covering has a much greater 
tendency to create damp than the constant covering which the 
plants have in their native places of growth. This may possibly 
arise from the variableness of our climate compared with that in 
which al pines naturally grow. 
In March, yearly, the plants should be re-potted, and such species 
propagated as are required, by division of the plant, by seed, saved 
during the previous summer, or by cuttings, according to the 
nature of the various kinds. The soil used should, for a large 
number of them, be sandy peat and loam in equal proportions ; some, 
however, are grown in sandy peat alone ; others, which are only 
found amongst the debris of micaceous rocks, in a soil of which 
mica, in a reduced state, forms a part ; the true bog-plants, in peat- 
bog soil ; while alpine aquatics should be planted in sheer sand, and 
submerged in tubs of water. The pots generally used are small or 
large sixties. These will, no doubt, be found most convenient ’n 
many cases ; but to grow the majority of alpines to the greatest 
January. 
