126 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. (Vion. LET 
possible, a sense of the appropriateness of enriching Canadian flower 
gardens with the wealth of Canadian wild-wood beauty, inured to our 
Canadian climate, and waiting at our very doors to be employed to _ 
ornament our Canadian homes. Surely the flowers of our native land 
are more lovely in our eyes than those of any other. We gathered them 
in childhood, twined them in our playmate’s hair, and linked them with 
all the joyous memories of youth, so that by the very richness of their 
associations they speak to our hearts as can those of no other land. 
Have not many of you, when taking a country outing, paused in your 
ramble at sight of some woodland flower, and while you looked, the 
shadow on life’s dial fled many degrees backward, and you found yourself 
listening again to the merry tones of young voices once familiar, and 
could almost feel again “the touch of a vanished hand ;” and as you 
turned reluctantly away, that simple modest flower had for you a loveli- 
ness that the most princely exotic can never possess ? 
Like the Red-man of the forest our wild-flowers are passing away, and 
before very long many of them will be gone. The settlement of the 
country with its attendant industries, must necessarily destroy the con- 
ditions favorable to their existence. The axe and the plow are doing 
their work, and not these alone, but the careless gatherer is pulling them 
up by the roots, as though anxious to exterminate them as soon as 
possible. The burning off of the dry leaves is also destructive to those 
plants, the roots of which lie near the surface ; and when the ground is 
dry and the soil of a fibrous or peaty character, the fire will penetrate to 
a considerable depth, quite far enough to kill out even those plants that 
may be called deep rooted. And even when the plants are not roasted 
to death, the fire consuming the leaves lying on the ground robs them of 
the food which the decaying leaves supply, and of the moisture which 
these leaves retain. 
What can be done to stay this destruction and preserve to us our native 
flowers from the extinction which threatens them? Canada has no 
botanic garden into which they might be gathered. “I speak this to our 
shame.” Cnce the writer had hopes that a portion of the grounds of 
the Ontario Agricultural College would be used for an arboretum and 
garden, into which would be collected such trees as would thrive there, 
and at least the most interesting of our native plants. Such a collection 
was thought to be a desirable, if not an essential factor in the education 
of those designing to devote themselves to rural pursuits. Under the 
superintendence of a committee of the Fruit Growers’ Association, 
appointed at the request of the Hon. S. C. Wood, then acting Commis- 
sioner of Agriculture, which was composed of Mr. Wm. Saunders, now 
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