THE PLANT WORLD 63 



Dear : The Board of Managers of the Wild Flower Preservation 



Society of America respectfully requests the privilege of electing you as a 

 member thereof, believing you to be in cordial sympathy with the objects 

 of the organization. The annual dues are one dollar a year, this sum en- 

 titling members to the official organ of the Society, ' ' The Plant World, ' ' a 

 sample copy of which is mailed to you herewith under separate cover, 

 and also to other publications of the Society. 



The enclosed leaflet gives an outline of our work and aims. Our 

 chief endeavor is directed toward the protection of native plants from the 

 complete extermination now threatening such species as the mayflower 

 or trailing arbutus, the hollj^ the mountain-laurel, etc. 



The list of officers, all of whom serve without compensation, includes, 

 as you will notice, some of the most prominent botanists in the country. 

 The Society is in urgent need of funds with which to carry out its pro- 

 posed efforts. Will you not contribute your quota toward the preserva- 

 tion of the natural beauties of forest and field ? 



Very sincerely yours, 



Charles Louis Pollard, Secretary. 



The following article, sent to the New York Sun by Mr. Wm. T. 

 Davis several years ago, has been brought to our attention by Mrs. N. L. 

 Britton. The lapse of time has made more forcible the facts which it 

 presents, and it is herewith printed for the information of our members : 



CHRISTMAS TREE HARVEST. 



" No fewer than 1,500,000 Christmas trees are used in New York and 

 the New England States every season," said an old woods operator of 

 the Pine Tree State, " and of that number at least three-fifths grow on the 

 bleak hillsides of eastern and northern Maine, where the harvesting" and 

 shipping of Christmas trees to the towns and large cities along the Atlan- 

 tic Coast are conducted on a large scale. Well-paying employment is 

 thus furnished to hundreds of young farmers and timbermen, and at a 

 time, too, when finances are low and demands for ready cash are propor- 

 tionately many. 



More than 95 per cent of the Christmas trees which reach the New 

 York and other extensive markets from Maine are black balsam fir, a 

 coarse-grained, white-wooded product of the sub-arctic belt, which, to- 

 gether with the dwarf gray birch and bitter willow shrub, forms the final 

 hedge of vegetation around the North Pole. All the rest are hemlocks, 

 pines, and now and then arbor-vitae trees. Of course pines and spruces 

 are easier to get, and in many parts of the United States they are almost 

 entirely used, but the general adoption of the fir in the East is due to its 

 many superior ornamental features and adaptation to Christmas purposes. 

 Another reason perhaps is that after several centuries of inquiry and 

 experiment no one has ever discovered any possible use for the fir other 

 than its entire fitness as a Christmas emblem. 



