This Plate is illustrative of an artificial rockery, constructed in the small quadrangle of a suburban tea-house, and designed in imitation of the natural hollowed rocks which abound in different parts of the scenery of the country. Beneath the arch formed by the rock-work winds a little stream leading from the well-drain and supplying a pool provided with a small fountain. Moss, lichen, grasses, small plants, and dwarf evergreens are grown on the rockery, and a miniature stone pagoda decorates the top of the arch. Such artificially constructed rockeries are not very common in Japanese gardening, the preference being always given to single natural stones of interesting shape; but, when occasionally introduced, they are designed in imitation of some object in natural scenery, and in this respect they differ from the meaningless and shapeless conglomerations of stone and slag employed under the name of rockeries in European gardens.
