84 ORNAMENTAL GARDENING 
I want to lift up my voice and plead for the hammocks. Like 
the wild game they are disappearing fast before the destroyer, 
man. It is only a question of time, and little time at that, when, 
at the rate they are being wiped out now the last of them will be 
gone. Along the shores of Biscayne Bay and on the nearby 
keys there are over one hundred species of tropical trees which 
are found growing wild nowhere else in the United States. It 
seems to me that it is almost a crime to exterminate these rare 
and beautiful things. Just within the boundaries of Miami and 
to the south of it there was, probably, the finest body of tropical 
hammock within the state and it ought to have been preserved 
for a park and arboretum but it is rapidly being destroyed and 
turned into building lots. 
If you have a bit of hammock on your premises save it; if you 
have already cut it down it may be that it would grow up again 
if it was not disturbed. Don’t thin out the trees or in any way 
trim it up, for nature has made it more interesting and beautiful 
than it is possible for you to do. 
