CHAPTER XI

ALPINE FIELDS FOR ENGLAND

“En multipliant la beauté, en donnant au monde des humbles le sens de la sincère beauté, vous lui aurez fait la plus exquise et peut-être la plus utile des charités.”—Pierre Vignot.

Thetitle of this chapter will come as a shock to some, and they will think it an insult to, and an outrage upon, Nature’s existing efforts for English meadows. In my previous volume, “Alpine Flowers and Gardens,” I ventured some mild wonder “that more attempts are not made in England to create Alpine pastures,” and I added: “Alpine rockworks we have in hundreds, but a stretch of meadow-land sown or planted with Alpine field-flowers seems as yet to be but rarely attempted.” And of this mild wonder some of my critics fell foul, and I was told that I seemed “to forget the peculiar beauty of English pasture as it is, with its buttercups, cowslips, and orchis, daisiesand red sorrel.” But let me reassure these nervous champions of what is “made in England.” I will be the last to slight or traduce the exquisite restraint of our typical home-fields, or to despise the spirit that can appreciate their charm and place it higher than the charm of alien fields. The inhabitants of a country are intimately affected by the country’s fields, and an Englishman is far more a product of his meadows than even he would suppose. His sturdy advocacy of a floral sufficiency which stops at Dandelions and Buttercups is part proof of this. Reciprocity in Nature is a very subtle and far-reaching law, and man owes much of his temperament and habit of mind to the landscape and its constituent parts. In this way, undoubtedly, the Englishman is largely indebted to the comparative taciturnity of his fields. Far be from me, then, to under-rate their value and their charm.

And yet, may I not think that this value and charm can perhaps be augmented? We love and revel in our native meadows as they are—their Buttercups, their Dandelions, their Daisies, and their Grasses; how much greater would not the love and revel be if here and there a generous measure of Swiss mountain-wealth were added?Such measure would be no violent innovation; it would be a natural amplification of the hereditary trend of our instinct for the beautiful. Swiss mountain-fields are not like Japanese gardens: our nature responds to them without affectation, for in them our mind

“Doth straight its own resemblance find.”

It is all very well for confirmed materialists to say we have not to study this side of the question because it is too fanciful; it is not to be dismissed by calling us mystics. Fancy has led men to much that is now inseparable from their understanding, and the mystic has stood for ages upon spots where Science is only now confidently placing her foot. Really and truly, too, the æsthetic aspect of life comes under the head of the utilitarian, and it matters more than much that is deemed material. Ruskin thought that “a wood of English trees is of more value to humanity than a Bank;” but this savours of too dogmatic thinking, and of the extreme dream of a specialist enthusiast. Without drawing invidious comparisons between the utilities of life, we may say that the woods and fields have an importance all their own, and that, by increasing their beauty, we increase their importance.

I do not for one instant think that in Maytime we could improve upon the weighty wealth of Hawthorn set amid knee-deep meadows of Buttercups and Parsnips; for the rare witchery of it all is unmistakable. I would leave it as it stands: Britishpar excellence, unrivalled for quiet prosperity, for unique felicity. Nor would I tamper with the wealth of Primrose copse, or attempt to meddle with the woods of Bluebells, Daffodils, and Foxgloves. To do any such thing would be purest sacrilege—and a wild conceit into the bargain! No, no; there is much, very much in Britain’s countryside that rightly stands in the front rank of Nature’s happiest creations, and it were mad impertinence to think to oust it or to improve it by inept additions. But these front-rank marvels are not everywhere. Many is the spot that might reasonably be bettered; many the wayside field, copse, bank, or railway-cutting that would repay us for a little help; and it is in such places (pax, O Farmer! have I not gone round to avoid treading on your property?)—it is with regard to such places that I do suggest we might take a leaf from Nature’s Alpine book.

ARNICA, the Brown Gentian (G. purpurea),CAMPANULA BARBATA, and the fiery littleHIERACIUM AURANTIACUM, painted from life in the fields towards the middle of July.

But why, some will ask—why interfere with our indigenous field-flowers, and thus with our pure-bredEnglish fields; why cause anything so individual to become mongrel? And this sounds plausible until we examine the pedigree of some of our “indigenous” flowers, and find that they are “doubtful natives,” and owe their presence among us to the Roman invader or are “escapes from cultivation.” Precedent is therefore on our side. Then why should not we of this twentieth century do as did the Romans for Britain—only with a little more method, not trusting to the seed of Alpine field-flowers coming inadvertently to England in our portmanteaux, our boots, or our hair? We ought not to be afraid of the inevitable trend of things towards a more general, more common aspect. We may well nurse some particular individuality so long as it is eminently useful, but at the same time we should leave our judgment open with regard to accretion, or, as the dictionary calls it, “increase by natural growth.” Insularity is a disappearing quantity, and there surely will and must come a time when we shall chiefly hear of it from books of ancient history and scandalousMémoires.

But if for the present we cannot bring ourselves to continue systematically the work of the Romans, let us at least take in hand some of the field-plantswe have already with us, and induce them to become more general and abundant. Even in that way we should approach to something of Alpine prodigality; for there is quite a goodly number of British plants among the colour-giving subjects of an Alpine meadow. There is, for instance,Geranium sylvaticum(the rose or blue-mauve Wood Crane’s-bill), rare, and found mostly upon pastures in the north; or there isAstrantia major(the pinky-green-and-white Masterwort), an “escape,” near Ludlow and Malvern; orPhyteuma spicata(the cream-coloured Rampion), found only in Sussex; orSalvia pratensis(the rich-blue Meadow Clary), scarce, and confined to fields in Kent, Oxfordshire, and Cornwall; orPolemonium cœruleum(the blue Jacob’s Ladder or Greek Valerian), rare, and confined to the north of England. Why should not such as these be brought from out their hiding and be induced to people propitious places in a more abundant way?

No sooner, however, does “sweet reasonableness” begin to dawn upon our imaginations, and we commence to take kindly to our idea, than we are confronted by the irate farmer—hasty and nervous lest we and our “weeds” have designsupon his domain—upbraiding us for daring to suggest such palpably bad farming. But we have no intent to meddle withhismeadows. Yet if we had, what answer can we make him? Is it of any use for us to point to Swiss experience of flowery pastures, telling him that the finest cheeses—those of Gruyère and Emmenthal—are made on the middle or lower “alpen,” and that, in fact, they come from fields which are literally crammed with lovely flowering plants? Is it of any use assuring him that cows fed on the comparatively flowerless fields of Fully, for example, opposite Martigny in the Rhône Valley, give not only less, but less rich milk than those fed on the fields of Chemin, Chables, or Champex, and that, whenever possible, the flowerless hay goes to the horses? Is it of any use pointing out these facts to our scandalised friend? Possibly not. Possibly he will retort: “Necessity makes high use of just whatsoever is within reach; other lands other ways; circumstance creates ideals.” And quite possibly he will be right.

But whatever may be said in disparagement of the introduction of Alpine plants into England’s fields in general, little or no objection can be madeto fields of such plants as adjuncts to Alpine rock-gardens, or as embellishments to park and pleasaunce. Here we are in a domain which is “orthodoxly” regarded as æsthetic, and not as practical or utilitarian. And, after all, we had best begin by the thin end of the wedge—we had best commence with these flower-fields as a “luxury”; afterwards—as is quite likely—we may be able to chronicle “escapes” into the general scheme of the countryside.

I can think of no feature of the Alpine landscape which could add so much charm and interest to English Alpine gardens as an Alpine meadow, and it is no mean matter for surprise that this feature has not so far claimed the attention it most assuredly merits. Moreover, an Alpine rock-garden shorn of its meadow-setting is less than a picture devoid of its frame. Can any one who knows the Alps imagine what they and their rock-flora would be without the fields and grassy slopes? Would there be the same widespread and immediate interest? It is inconceivable, for these fields and slopes are, as it were, the exquisitely sumptuous hall through which, amazed and wondering, we pass to gain the rudeness and refinement of Alpine asceticism proper.

Then there is another and, I think, a crying reason for the creation of fields to supplement our rockworks; we garden at present, for the most part, as if all Alpines were rock-plants, whereas quite an important percentage are purely field-flowers. It will be said that in England’s comparatively luxurious climate the grasses would overwhelm the Alpines and that, therefore, it is only wise to place these latter out of harm’s way. But, although there certainly are some subjects of an Alpine meadow which could scarcely be expected to grapple successfully with English conditions, yet there is a whole host that could do so, especially if care were taken to choose suitable grasses and to exclude certain English weeds (the Field Bindweed, for example, or the Plantain). In advocating any such adoption as the present, we must not be so unphilosophic as to be sweeping and dogmatic; we must be quick to recognise that such subjects of the Alpine grass-lands asViola calcarataandGentiana verna,excisa, andnivalisshall of necessity be ushered to the rockwork when they arrive in our island home. But, frankly, I believe there are many of these plants which would be altogether grateful to find themselves in a field rather than in a garden-border or upon a rockery.

Will any one deny that a plant which, in a wild, free state, invariably chooses to dwell upon the meadows is not more at home there than when robbed of such pressing, self-sought company? Will any one deny that, for instance,Campanula rhomboidalis,Paradisia Liliastrum,Salvia pratensis,Narcissus poeticus,Veratrum album, orPhyteuma betonicifoliumare not infinitely happier when growing together in close company with grasses than when standing in select isolation upon the rockery or the garden-border?

Possibly it will be argued that these field-plants show themselves so much better on the border or the rockwork. But do they? Does Colchicum, for example, look better against the brown earth of a border than upon a thick-set carpet of green? DoesVeronica spicataever look better than when seen upon the fields of the Alps? Is it possible that the Meadow-Orchids are not at their best among the grasses? For my own part, I find many of these plants look thin and lonesome when carefully set apart “to do themselves full justice.” In nature they are items in a rich reciprocal scheme of intimacy, and in this assuredly is their truest happiness; therefore, as part of this scheme they must certainly be seen at their best. Snatchedfrom their social birthright and perched in grandeur upon a rockwork, they cannot but have wistful thoughts of lost companionship.

Owners of rockworks may protest that they do all they possibly can for their captives, treating them as tenderly as they would any beautiful bird in a cage; they may protest that their captives are fed and watered most carefully and know little or nothing of the struggle for existence which rules upon Alpine meadows. And this is all very right and proper as far as it goes; but very many of these plants could be treated even more kindly and properly by allowing them something of their ancestral habits. That which untrammelled Nature decrees for her offspring is inevitably best, and we should take practical note of it where possible. We ourselves are rebels and, as modern instance shows, are very conscious of it in our more rational moments, crying aloud in a hazy, frightened way, that we must “get back to Nature!” Why, then, compel rebellion in so many a thing we admire? Such compulsory estrangement from what is natural is a sorry sort of kindness. Let us put back the field-flowers into the fields—or, at any rate, as many as we may.

To a great number of flower-lovers this wouldbe a much simpler matter than the building and tending of rockworks (though, of course, the ideal should be for the field to companion or environ the rockery). It would be less complicated, and it would not entail such a variety of specialist knowledge. Many of a kind, and each kind robust and, for the most part, ordinary—that should be the rule among the plants for our Alpine meadow. Fractious, exigent rarities would naturally not be welcome. Fields are perhaps loveliest when planned upon broad lines. There is no need to make extraordinary efforts to find sports and forms; no need to do more than Nature does—here and there a white or porcelain-greyCampanula rhomboidalis, here and there a pale-pinkGeranium sylvaticum, here and there a whiteSalvia pratensis, here and there a whiteColchicum autumnale. Forms and sports and vagaries are all very well, but in these meadows it is the type-plant which counts. A field of Salvia, Campanula, and Geranium is blue and mauve; that is the general effect, and variation from it rarely counts in the colour-scheme. Eccentricity we may keep for the proud eminence of our rockworks.

The tall yellowHYPOCHŒRIS UNIFLORA,CENTAUREA UNIFLORA, the Golden Hawkweed (Crepis aurea) drawn from life in the July fields.

If it is not possible to transplant to the plainsthe clean, invigorating air which goes so far to form the joy exhaled of Alpine meadows; if we may not lay on the wonderful atmosphere of the Alps as we may the ozone from the seaside,—we can at least take the flowers, those brilliant children of the Alpine ether, and thus help materially towards mountain purity in our parks and gardens. Some of the gaiety might be lost in the process—some of that intensity of colouring which steals over the very grass as it climbs the mountain-side and encroaches upon the kingdom of the Rhododendron.Astrantia majormight lose its rosy-magenta blush and assume a more or less livid green-white; Lychnis, Geranium, and Salvia might lack something of their Alpine lustre; a certain mildness might reign generally in the place of mountain briskness; but, on the whole, the loss to the flowers would be small and the gain to the garden or the landscape immense, and we should find that we had annexed much of the charm and joy of Alpine days—

“Days lit with the flame of the lamps of the flowers.”

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