124 THE PLANT WORLD 



the fair colonies of hepaticas that for generations had flourished on the 

 northern slope of the terrace went down forever before the relentless 

 plough. These are the causes that can not be controlled. The cutting 

 of the woodland, the draining of the meadow and the cultivation of the 

 upland are necessary and lawful results of advancing civilization. Be- 

 cause then so many of our native plants must necessarily perish, it be- 

 hooves all who love them to put forth greater energy to stem the tide of 

 needless waste and destruction that in many places is leading to their ex- 

 tinction. 



While we welcome every indication of a growing appreciation of flowers 

 among our people, it is with consternation and a tightening of the heart- 

 strings that the real lover of flowers beholds the victims of the massacre 

 exposed for sale in our city streets. 



Those poor little bunches of trailing arbutus ! Who does not know 

 them ? All the beautiful green leaves cut away, and the poor little up- 

 turned blushing faces crowded together ! Those of us who have tenderly 

 brushed away the dry brown forest-leaves and found these ' ' babes in the 

 wood " awake and timidly peeping out, catch our breath and hurry by. 

 The dainty little Mitchclla, the partridge-berry, is by no means infre- 

 quently to be found at a flower-stand. The Christmas fern (^Polystichum 

 acrostichoides) is ruthlessly consumed by the florist ; and the same may 

 be said of the southern Galax, whose beautiful shining leaves surround 

 many a bunch of hothouse violets, a strange and foreign union to those 

 who understand, and one as lacking in artistic feeling as would be a deli- 

 cate La France rose with its foliage supplanted by sturdy oak leaves. 



The gathering of these woodland treasures for the city market is 

 largely the work of Italians who make it their regular business. With 

 no thought beyond the present need, they are a dangerous foe to such 

 plants as have a market value. The trailing arbutus can not be trans- 

 planted with success. Surely it would be a matter of deep regret if, in the 

 years to come, the " Mayflower " that welcomed the Pilgrims should live 

 only in story and song. 



This constantly increasing demand for the wild things from the 

 country is one of the hopeful signs of the times. It should be met and 

 met intelligently. A new industry, the raising of wild flowers on their 

 native soil, will certainly arise in the near future. Wild flowers reach 

 their culmination only under favorable conditions of heat and light, soil 

 and water-supply, and some have fallen into the mycorhiza habit and are 

 dependent on certain fungi in the soil. It is almost an impossibility to 

 imitate these conditions and bring them about artificially. Man can do 

 much, but he has yet to prove that he can make as good a sand-dune or 

 peat-bog or pine-forest or birchen slope as Nature. 



With proper care, a patch of trailing arbutus might be made to yield 



