248 the amateur’s flower garden. 
and display of ferns and alpine plants in picturesque arrange¬ 
ments. In tlie neighbourhood of great towns, and especially 
about London, the best available material is the product of 
the brick, kiln, and what are there called “ burrs” answer 
admirably, for they may be built into any form, and when 
the roots of plants come into contact with them, it is to the 
advantage of the plants, rather than otherwise, which cannot 
be said of the glassy and impervious furnace slag, and other 
vitreous substances that are occasionally employed. 
In constructing a rockery or ruin, definite measures must 
be adopted to provide sites for plants. Mere handfuls of 
soil on the tops of dry walls may suit a few of the hardy 
succulents, but it is of the first and last importance that 
there should be large masses of suitable soil in all parts of 
the structure 
which it is in¬ 
tended to em¬ 
bellish with 
plants, and 
especially for 
hardy ferns 
and alpines. 
Almost any 
plant will live 
for a season or 
so in a spoon¬ 
ful of mould, 
if watered 
twice a day, 
and watched 
like a crimi¬ 
nal at large ; but if plants are to thrive in a rockery, they must 
be encouraged to strike their roots deep into a soil adapted to 
their nature, and there should be no stint of stuff to promote 
deep rooting when the work is in process of construction. A 
very large number of fine rockery plants will thrive in the 
most common soil with an infinitesimal amount of attention, 
and in the most off-hand way we may treat such subjects as 
arabis, alyssum, campanula, asperula, cerastium, corydalis, 
iberis, and a hundred others. But for the best of the hardy 
ferns there must be an ample bed, or many beds, and masses 
of sandy peat; for a few of the rock-loving ferns, shelves and. 
