18 FLORA OF WASHINGTON AND VICINITY. 



to cultivation he instinctively denounces as acts of vandalism. In him, 

 more than in any other class of mankind, the poet's injunction, 



Woodman, sjiare tliat tree," 



touches a responsive chord. While all this may seem as absurd to some 

 as does the withholding from tillage of great pleasure-grounds in the 

 form of hunting-parks for the lauded sporting gentry of Northern and 

 Western Europe, still, when these parts of the world are compared with 

 the artificially made deserts of Southeastern Europe and Western Asia, 

 caused by the absence of such sentiments, there may perhaps be dimly 

 recognized a " soul of good in things evil," if not a soul of wisdom in 

 things ridiculous. 



After the protracted subjection of a country to the conditions of 

 civilization it gradually comes about that while the greater part of the 

 surface falls under cultivation, more or less thorough, and the botanist 

 is ultimately excluded from it, there will remain a few favored spots 

 which from one cause or another will escape and continue to form his 

 favorite haunts. In the vicinity of large rivers, giving greater variety 

 to the surface, or of rugged hills or mountains, this will be especially 

 the case. As a country grows old, large estates in the vicinity of cities 

 fall into the possession of heirs who are engaged in mercantile or pro- 

 fessional business and neglect them, or they come into litigation, lasting 

 for years, and are thus hapj»ily abandoned to iSTature. These and otlier 

 causes have operated in an especial manner in the surroundings of 

 Washington, and there thus exist a large number of these green oases, 

 as it were, interspersed over the otherwise botanical desert. 



In consequence of this fact it requires experience in order to improve 

 the facilities which the place affords. A botanist unacquainted with 

 the proper localities for successful collection might spend a month almost 

 in vain and depart with the conviction that there was nothing here to 

 be found. lb nuxy not be wholly peculiar, but these favored localities 

 are here often of very limited extent and in situations which from a dis- 

 tance afford no attraction to the collector. Civilization is, however, 

 very perceptibly encroaching upon many of them, and it is feared that 

 in another half century little will be left but a few bare rocks or inac- 

 cessible marshes. 



In naming localities the principal authorities relied upon are: 1, a 

 recent Atlas of fifteen miles around Washington, including the County of 

 Montgomery, Md., Compiled, Brawn, and Published from Actual S2ir'veys, 

 by G. M. Uoplcins, G. E. Fhiladelphia, 1879; and 2, a military map 



