262 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 1903 
The Association in Devon consists of a society of which 
each member pays a subscription to a common fund. 
This fund is then used in paying a man to conduct prose- 
cutions, in paying watchers, in circulating notices and 
leaflets, and in obtaining the assistance of editors of papers 
to give publicity to the question in general. 
In order to see how such an Association as is contem- 
plated can work, it is necessary to find out— 
(1) What the laws of the country do towards assisting 
in the preservation of plants. 
(2) What plants are in danger in the county. 
(3) What methods of preservation are available where 
such laws are deficient or inapplicable. 
(1) As it stands at present the law is wholly inade- 
quate to deal with the protection of any wild plants, rare 
or otherwise. Briefly the case may be stated as follows : 
A man may absolutely exterminate a rare plant only known 
perhaps to grow in one place in England, or a man may 
denude hedges of any number of ordinary plants and ferns 
that make them beautiful, and have perhaps a money value 
of many pounds, yet unless he can be proved to have done 
damage to the land—to the real property—even if such 
damage only amounts to 6d in actual value, he cannot be 
prosecuted. The damage referred to consists, for instance, 
of injury to fences or damage by leaving large holes in 
the soil. A pilferer, if a man of substance (which he 
seldom is), might be sued in a civil action for damages, or 
in any case might be removed from the land if caught in 
time, but he cannot be prosecuted. The result is that 
there must be a large number of offenders in order that 
out of them a small proportion can be found who have 
damaged the land, because in most cases the removal of 
plants does not necessarily result in such damage. As 
regards the possibility of bye-laws to be made by a County 
