IIo Muhlenbergia, Volume 4 
be effected by this zmprovement of the country. I have to-day 
to drive seven miles from home before I can make a satisfactory 
collection, and in two or three years I expect to have to travel 
fifty miles for the purpose. I am absolutely unable to trace a 
number of plants which I had no difficulty in finding a few years 
ago. The wheat crops and the weeds have replaced them. 
Like the American bison and the American forest, they will be 
missed only when they are gone. 
It is safe to predict that many plants not having a strong 
foothold within the country will belong to extinct species be- 
fore long. It is up to the collector of the present day to use the 
remaining time right, and without procrastination preserve from 
the virgin prairie an ample supply of these plants, which soon 
will exist only in a few herbaria. Don’t wait for the several 
state legislatures to do something. Their time has not come 
yet, but it will certainly come. As with the buffalo, it will 
come when the plants belong to history. 
Leeds, North Dakota. 
