62 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 



water streams like Toms River, Mays Landing-, Millville, etc. ; 

 others, like Hammonton, Vineland and Egg Harbor City, owe 

 their establishment to the railroads. 



In recent years many other settlements are springing up along 

 the railroads, and are spreading their clearings into the wilder- 

 ness, while various agencies exert an important influence on 

 vegetation. 



Portable sawniiills are cutting all the white cedars, and in 

 place of the dark swamps we encounter mountains of yellow saw- 

 dust. The extension of cultivated cranberry bogs proves the 

 death knell to many native bog plants, which do not seem able to 

 stand the flooding. The onslaught of the Christmas venders 

 upon the mistletoe has practically exterminated it, while berry- 

 bearing holly is becoming scarce, and the sale of arbutus and 

 pyxie must soon affect their abundance in certain localities. The 

 wood pulp industry makes a market for any sort of timber, no 

 matter what size ; the use of sphagnum' for packing bulbs and 

 garden plants for shipment makes it worth while to rake some of 

 the small bogs completely clear of this moss which is so neces- 

 sary for the growth of many native bog species, and the demand 

 for native shrubbery for planting on large estates has practically 

 exterminated the laurel in certain regions, many carloads of 

 these bushes being shipped at one time by a single dealer. 



The advent of the automobile, too, has forced the substitution 

 of good roads for the old sand trails in many places, and hun- 

 dreds of people now visit certain remote parts of the barrens to 

 one who went there ten years ago. 



All these influences are bound to make changes in the flora of 

 the region in the near future, and it is none too soon to make a 

 serious effort to record its characteristic features and its com- 

 ponent species before it is too late. 



Although the New Jersey Pine Barrens have been well known 

 as a locality for choice plants since the earliest days of botanical 

 study in America, nevertheless very little has been published re- 

 garding their flora or even their history and physical features. 

 We know, from casual mention in the descriptions of new species, 

 that Rafinesque, Pursh, Nuttall and Zaccheus Collins were 

 familiar with their barren sands and deep swamps. We know, 



