64 THE PLANT WORLD 



public must be educated up to the point where it will be possible for 

 them to enjoy the flowers and plants of field and forest without destroy- 

 ing them. They must be led to see that it is only selfishness which 

 prompts the indiscriminate plucking of every bright-colored flower or 

 shapely fern that attracts their eye. A walk afield, enlivened by the 

 presence of flowers and birds, leaves behind a memory that may be 

 cherished for years. The ruthless breaking up of this rounded sym- 

 metry of nature, simply for the gratification of the moment, leaves a 

 void impossible to fill. 



As a means of awakening this more or less dormant public senti- 

 ment, I would make the following suggestions : 



In large measure it can be accomplished by the aid of the public 

 press. As perhaps the best means of reaching this field, I would advo- 

 cate the formation of what may be called a 2^>'^ss bureau. That is, an 

 individual or a set of individuals should be charged with the duty of 

 preparing, from time to time, short, crisp, readable accounts of this 

 movement. These should be printed on slips in the form of " copy ' 

 and distributed as widely as possible to newspapers and other periodi- 

 cals, accompanied with a request to the editor for publication if found 

 available. Some will, of course, find their way into the waste basket, 

 but if supplied in this convenient form, many will undoubtedly be 

 printed. This work should not be sporadic, nor, on the other hand, 

 would it be wise to crowd it. 



As a further means of spreading this movement I would advocate 

 the establishment of a national society, aiming to do for plants what 

 the Audubon Society has so well done for our birds. This, of course, 

 should be in no wise a technical botanical society, but an organization 

 adapted especially to children, young people and nature-lovers in gen- 

 eral. With relatively slight modification the constitution of the Audu- 

 bon Society could be adapted to the needs of an organization of this 

 kind, for Avhich I venture to suggest the name Torrey Society. There 

 could be no more fitting memorial to this celebrated botanist than a 

 society devoted to the preservation and popular study of the plants he 

 loved so well. 



The establishment of chapters of this society should be urged in 

 centers where interest, however slight, is manifested, and in time a jour- 

 nal devoted to its needs could be inaugurated. At first, however, it 

 might be best to affiliate with some existing publication, after the man- 

 ner of the magazine Bird-Lore, which is the oflicial organ of the Audu- 

 bon Societies. 



Another fruitful field to be cultivated is the public school. Probably 

 no class in the general public is so destructive of flowers and plants as 

 the average school child. Most children are naturally destructive, but 



