A PLEA FOR PRESERVATION. 

 By Harriet Wheeler. 



T 



HE following notice, placed by Senator Hoar on his grounds at 

 Asnebiimskit, Mass., will meet the appreciation of every lover 

 of nature : 



NOTICE! 



YOU ARE WELCOME. 



BUILD NO FIRES. 



BRING NO GUNS. 



AND PULL UP NO FLOWERS BY THE ROOTS. 



The scientific spirit and the love of the beautiful are seldom at 

 variance. A well-known botanist with whom I once made some col- 

 lecting tours never ruthlesslessly or unnessarily tore up a single plant, 

 and sometimes, when in search of specimens, the great sheets of moss 

 were pulled off the decayed logs in the deep forest, they were care- 

 fully put back in their natural position, gently patted down, and coax- 

 ingly bidden to grow again and continue to bless with their beauty 

 the sight of bird or deer, or of man, if he chanced to penetrate to the 

 unfrequented spot. 



I have in my herbarium a magnificent specimen of Aspidium 

 aciilcatnni Braiinii gathered by a friend at Avalanche Pass in the 

 Adirondacks. The large, strong fronds and the heavy tuft of roots 

 show it to be an old, long established plant. Many years have gone 

 to the making of its vigorous, robust growth. It is a perfect specimen 

 and it makes an interesting page in the herbarium. With the pressed 

 specimen was sent a fine, healthy, growing plant which I put in a cor- 

 ner of the lawn, where it feebly exists in its strange and unaccustomed 

 surroundings — a starved, homesick fern that longs for mountain air, 

 the drip of waterfall and a rocky foothold, and I never look at it with- 

 out a touch of pity. I am sure if the plants had been left in their na- 

 tive soil they would be sending out luxuriant fronds and somebody 

 who goes without a specimen of this elegant, plume-like fern might 

 have rejoiced in the possession of one. 



The same friend, going to a distant point in the mountains be- 

 yond my ability to climb, promised to bring to me the Aspidinui fra- 

 grans, which had grown there abundantly in former years. But, alas, 

 not a frond had been left within reach. There were some growing on 



