FOREST TREES. 



213 



Our beautiful graceful ferns will no doubt disappear with the forest 

 trees that sheltered them at their roots, and will be lost ; their graceful 

 forms may still be found in lonely swamps, and on the shores of distant 

 lake and river banks, by the diligent botanist in his rambles in search 

 of wild plants ; but they will be regarded as rare indeed by those who 

 see them only by chance, as curiosities, in the herbarium, no longer 

 growing wild and free in their native verdure and beauty. 



In all countries, but our own Canada, there are national parks and 

 extensive botanical gardens, and it seems a strange thing that with such 

 vast materials at our command, of soil and vegetation, that our country- 

 should be destitute of an institution so necessary and so valuable. Will 

 not some of our legislators see to this, for is it not a fact that our 

 resources as respects the natural productions of the land, have not as yet 

 been fully recognized ? We have wealth that has never been utilized 

 in the form of medicine, dye stuffs, and materials for manufacturing 

 paper, linen, cordage, &c., to say nothing of adornments for our home- 

 steads in climbing plants for our verandahs, and lovely flowers for our 

 garden borders, and native fruits which by culture might be converted 

 into household luxuries. Men from other lands carry home treasures 

 for the greenhouse, the uncared-for products of our plains, our forests 

 and swamps. 



The pride of many a gentleman's garden in England is the 

 " American border," where are cherished many of our wild shrubs and 

 flowers. The Canadian can scarcely believe that some of those plants 

 that are admired and valued by the florist, grew wild and uncared for 

 on his own land, possibly trodden down and despised as weeds ; but it 

 is true in this as in regard to other matters " A prophet is not without 

 honour save in his own country." 



Every plant, however simple, has a history attached to it — a use if 

 we would but seek it out. 



Before our woods are utterly despoiled, and the plants they 

 nourished and shaded are forgotten, some record should be preserved 

 of their uses and their beauties. 



There are teachings to be gathered even from the grass that we 

 tread upon. Did not Our Lord, Himself show us this, when he spake 

 of the Lilies of the field? So little interest has been felt in this branch 

 of the Natural History of Canada hitherto, that scarcely any of our young 

 people, children of the educated Canadians, know even the common 

 local names of the plants seen by them in their daily walks ; they are 

 cut off by ignorance from many sources of simple unalloyed pleasure, a 

 stepping stone, as it were, to higher and more intellectual enjoyment. 



