54 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



smother it out. A gentleman whom I know intimately 

 and who has an estate near Philadelphia, has seen it erad- 

 icated entirely from a large part of his grounds by the 

 common Japanese honeysuckle. The latter took a fancy 

 to a certain sunny slope where the rhus had been very 

 troublesome and spreading gradualh' it choked out every 

 vestige of the rhus in the course of a few years. 



America i« a big country and it may seem like a labor 

 of Hercules to get rid of so prevalent a weed, but if the 

 will exists it can, one would think, be exterminated quite 

 as surely as an3^ attractive bird whose plumage the mil- 

 liners desire. Perhaps, too, the aid of legislation might be 

 had in the shape of an imposition of fines and penalties up- 

 on property holders who permit the nviisance on their 

 ground. It may be urged that the public have no say in 

 what a man shall raise on his own land ; but on the other 

 hand it seems unreasonable that people who visit his place 

 on business should be exposed without redress to such a 

 nuisance, and that the traveling public should be con- 

 stantly subjected to the needless peril of poisoning froin 

 the veritable hedges of the plant which through the care- 

 lessness of some land-owners border manj- of our high- 

 ways. It a man may be enjoined by law from letting a 

 vicious dog run at large or from keeping diseased cattle in 

 his herd, why may he not be made the subject of prosecu- 

 tion for permitting the existence and spread of this public 

 nuisance of the plant world ? 



There has of late been some praiseworthy activity in 

 establishing societies for the protecting of our wild 

 flowers. An equal need seems to exist for a society for the 

 exterinination of poison ivy ; but to be a live organiza- 

 tion, its oflficers and board of managers would best be per- 

 sons w'ho "take" poison and know its tortures. Such 

 would realize as none else could, how v^orthj'- would be 

 the aim of a society of that kind ; and every tellow suffer- 

 er the land over would doubtless be glad to subscribe to 

 the cause. 



Pasadena, California. 



