214 THE PLANT WORLD 



The Wild Flower Preservation Society 



of America. 



SOME PLAIN TRUTHS. 



The rage for golf has done a good deal to exterminate wild flowers 

 in the environs of New York and other eastern cities. In a number of 

 haunts of the bird-foot violet on Staten Island this most exquisite of the 

 native violets has been exterminated by the greens and by the players 

 trampling to and fro. This violet is still abundant, however, around 

 Hempstead Plains and near Garden City, Vv'hence the bicyclers come in 

 with great bunches of it in springtime. 



The building of fine country places by wealthy people is, unfortunately, 

 the means of exterminating many wnld flowers in spots where, of all others, 

 they should be preserved. A certain wealthy New Yorker bought one of 

 the loveliest sites on Long Island — lovely not only for its view in all 

 directions, but for the woodland beauty of the land, slowly matured 

 through generations. There were beautiful masses of Virginia creeper, 

 draping the trees with a tropical luxuriance of foliage. The dogwoods 

 made spots of snow through the woods in May. There were red cedars 

 and sweet-woods and masses of viburnum, clumps of sumac to crimson 

 in the fall, and little natural ponds full of water lilies and pickerel weed. 

 He razed that site, combed it with a fine-tooth comb, drained the ponds, 

 cut down native trees and vines, uprooted the flowers that lived among 

 them — destroyed what it would take two hundred years to put back. 

 To him it was only a mess of weeds, to be remov^ed to make room for his 

 fine lawns and formal hedges. 



In happy contrast to this is another place near the Meadow Brook 

 Hunt Club. This estate has been developed according to its owner's 

 individual taste, and while laid out in formal fashion close to the house, 

 the grounds are full of delightful woodland nooks. She has kept the 

 scarlet cardinal flowers standing like points of flame in the darkest woods, 

 the American holly, masses of native ferns and shrubs, the red maples 

 that grew wild on the place, and the water lilies and pickerel weed. 



At Lakewood there are many beautiful places in which bits of the 

 wild lake shore have been preserved in all their native loveliness. Private 

 schools and boarding houses have displayed admirable wisdom in this 

 respect. In the Vanderbilt mausoleum, on Staten Island, on the con- 

 trary, the opposite taste was displayed. A strip of natural hillside, 

 thickly sewn with wild flowers, was destroyed, and the grounds laid out 

 in formal style. 



