Artificial Rockwork 
SHEEP SHELTERS, BRONX PARK, NEW YORK 
BEAR DENS (UNFINISHED), BRONX PARK, 
NEW YORK 
There is in the Borghese gardens even a 
mass of tufa with an arch and statuary on the 
top, and over and over again a pile of rough 
rocks is used as a base for statuary, not 
merely playful and bizarre like that at 
Caserta, but serious and monumental like 
the statue of Garibaldi, at Venice. Such 
things are not always good models for imi¬ 
tation ; but in a thousand ways and places 
rockwork is used with ornamental intent 
and effect, not always so adroitly as in the 
statue of Porthos being crushed by the rocks 
in the Luxembourg gardens, or as impres¬ 
sively as the Humboldt monument at Berlin, 
but, nevertheless, beautifully and appro¬ 
priately. 
In our own country and in England rock¬ 
work is nearly as popular as on the Continent, 
but we do not use it so artistically, though 
sometimes more beautifully and pleasantly. 
This is not because we understand the piling 
up of rough stones better than the foreigners, 
or so well, but because we are in the habit of 
regarding them as a base or background for 
trailing roses, Boston ivy, silver euonymus, 
golden honeysuckle, green English ivy, or as 
a sort of foil to dwarf nasturtiums, moss 
pinks, stonecrop, or in fact, almost anything 
that does not grow too tall and flowers gayly, 
or spreads its little lengthening arms over the 
rocks to enjoy their strength and hide their 
bareness. Such a rockery is, or should 
be, nothing but earth studded more or less 
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