THE PL.OT WOELD 83 



method is hardly feasible for our large cities, but possibly it can be 

 imitated in the country. 



"Trees, shrubs and herbs," the appeal reads; shrubs are perennial 

 and picking their flowers does not kill them, but we usually have to 

 break off the flowers with a length of branch and leaves, and this has 

 the effect of pruning. Now, though judicious pruning benefits a plant, 

 overpnining weakens it, and injudicious pruning, or pruning done at 

 the wrong season, is also bad for it. It is holly and mountain laurel 

 that our Boston Society calls upon us especially to protect, as they 

 are both slow-growing shrubs, and the poor laurel has to undergo two 

 attacks annualh^, one for the flowers in summer and one for the ever- 

 green leaves at Christmas time. We rely upon the same society to 

 inform us if we should refrain from purchasing pussywillow, flowering 

 dogwood, azaleas and black-alder ; the scarlet berries of the latter are 

 very beautiful in early winter, though it lacks the leaves of its cousin, 

 the holly. The ground pine is said to be in danger from being torn up 

 wholesale for Christmas green, and we have already been called upon 

 in the Boston Transcidpt to refrain from purchasing the Mayflower 

 offered for sale in quantity in the streets in early spring. 



The leaflet I have just quoted is No. 1 of our Plant Protection So- 

 ciety, and is written by Eobert T. Jackson. The herbs which he deems 

 in need of protection are sabbatia and fringed gentian, but he considers 

 the following species so abundant as not to be in danger : marsh mari- 

 gold, iris, aster, golden rod, violet except the crowfoot (which is that ? 

 Viola pedata ?) and houstonia. I take exception to including the hous- 

 tonia in this list, because one has to dig it up in clumps, root and all ; 

 it is nearly impossible to pick it flower by flower. 



The maiden-hair fern, Mr. Jackson tells us, has been nearly eradi- 

 cated in this vicinit}^ ; think what a loss this is to us all. I did not 

 even know that it formerly grew here. But I have noticed that the 

 evergreen native ferns are much used by Boston florists as a cheap 

 green to add to bunches of carnations and other leafless flowers to save 

 their hothouse smilax and diosma. 



A friend in Orchard Park, N. Y., writes me that two species of ev- 

 ergreen ferns have been practically exterminated about Buffalo by the 

 greenhouse men. "Where twelve years ago were luxuriant beds and 

 rich masses of these ferns, now only a few puny specimens are to be 

 seen. The same thing has happened to the beautiful maiden-hair fern, 

 though it never was as abundant as other ferns." She also writes from 

 Connecticut, "from the country about Waterbury in fact, from New 

 Haven County, within twenty years, the once riotously abundant Kal- 

 mia latifolia and plentiful Epigaea repens have been skinned. The lat- 

 ter has almost disappeared, and the former grows in scrubby little 



