TEE HOME GARDEN\ 
72 
a flower bed is not the proper position. To be pleasing, it 
must have the air of haying grown naturally among its 
surroundings. 
Most gardens or grounds of any reasonable size have 
some patch of terra incognita , so far as cultivation is con¬ 
cerned, some irregular, brambly corner, or uneven section, 
of which stones seem the natural product; and such a spot 
is just the place for a rockery. “ For the idea which rock 
work as well as water should suggest is that it is natural to 
the spot, that it has either cropped up from the soil, or that 
it has been laid bare by some process of excavation which 
was necessary to the formation of the ground.”' 
In this connection rises up the experience of a friend, 
the owner of a very pretty little suburban residence, who 
had with considerable trouble erected a mound of rocks and 
earth beneath her dining-room window, where no such ex¬ 
crescence could possibly be supposed indigenous to the soil, 
and, while the green things on the structure were yet strug¬ 
gling desperately for a precarious existence, the lady de¬ 
cided to rent her house for the summer months. A very 
impressive personage, with India shawl and eyeglass, came 
to view the premises, and was exceedingly minute in her in¬ 
vestigations. “ That pile of stones,” said she, waving a 
perfectly gloved hand toward the mound outside the 
dining-room window, “will, of course, be removed?” 
“ Stones ! ” stammered the discomfited proprietress, “ why, 
that is my—my rockery ! ” “Ah!” murmured the lady 
of the eyeglass, as she peered through that invaluable mag¬ 
nifier, 66 of course it is ; how very stupid of me, to be sure ! 
But I am so wretchedly near-sighted.” 
In getting up a rockery, a general idea or plan should 
first be perfected in the mind of the constructor, contain¬ 
ing some approach to the size and form to be assumed by 
the completed edifice, as without this it will be a hap¬ 
hazard collection of uncongenial stones and plants, looking 
