EMBELLISHMENTS. 
403 
and holding them up. Such situations, in the case of a 
small lake or pond, or a brook, are admirable sites for rock- 
work. Where the materials of a suitable kind are 
abundant, and tasteful ingenuity is not wanting, surprising 
effects may be produced in a small space. Caves and 
grottoes, where ferns and mosses would thrive admirably 
with the gentle drip from the roof, might be made of the 
overarching rocks arranged so as to appear like small 
natural caverns. Let the exterior be partially planted with 
low shrubs and climbing plants, as the wild Clematis, and 
the effect of such bits of landscape could not but be 
agreeable in secluded portions of the grounds. 
In many parts of the country, the secondary blue 
limestone abounds, which, in the small masses found loose 
in the woods, covered with mosses and ferns, affords the 
very finest material for artificial rockwork.* 
After all, much the safest way is never to introduce 
rockwork of any description, unless we feel certain that it 
will have a good effect. When a place is naturally 
picturesque, and abounds here and there with rocky banks, 
etc., little should be done but to heighten and aid the 
expressions of these, if they are wanting in spirit, by 
adding something more ; or softening and giving elegance 
to the expression, if too wild, by planting the same with 
* Our readers may see an engraving and description of a superb extravaganza 
in rockwork in a late number of Loudon’s Gardener’s Magazine. Lady 
Broughton, of Hoole House, Chester, England, has succeeded in forming, 
round a natural valley, an imitation of the hills, glaciers, and scenery of a 
passage in Switzerland. The whole is done in rockwork, the snow-covered 
summits being represented in white spar. The appropriate plants, trees, and 
shrubs on a small scale, are introduced, and the illusion, to a spectator standing 
in the valley surrounded by these glaciers, is said to be wonderfully striking 
and complete. 
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