House and Garden 
A CHANGE OF GRADE 
closely with stones, so that plants growing 
between the interstices may send their roots 
into the soil beneath, in search of moisture 
and nourishment. This most cheerful and 
popular kind of stone heap depends mostly 
on gaiety of color and the continued novelty 
of blossom appearing at its proper season 
and then giving place to something else. 
Can we classify the causes of all these 
effects and draw any general conclusions 
from them ? If it is possible to analyze and 
synthesize them so as to deduce rules and 
general principles it would surely be some¬ 
thing gained; for then people without 
intuition to guide them could build these 
pleasant and economical things for them¬ 
selves without making fundamental mistakes, 
and people with intuition would not need to 
study every problem from the beginning. 
Rockwork may be separated into two 
classes—the simulations of natural rock forma¬ 
tions, and the frankly artificial structures of 
rough stones piled up with or without cement, 
and imitating natural rocks only conven¬ 
tionally, as carved foliage imitates the real, 
or a statue, a man or beast; the imitation is 
not intended to deceive, and is but a symbol 
of the original, so that the designer has far 
more latitude and there is, meanwhile, no 
deception. Looking at the subject in this way 
A ROCKWORK CAVERN 
it is easy to see why such fantastic piles as 
those at Schoenbrunn with a symmetry and 
eccentricity impossible in a natural form- 
161 
