48 Bog-Trotting for Orchids 



true cause of extinction of these species in Pownal 

 swamps I cannot ascertain beyond this inference ; 

 however, I am convinced that a small fortune has 

 disappeared, estimated on the lost plants at fifty cents 

 each. 



Nearly all of the public schools are instructing the 

 children in drawing, — teaching them to study the wild 

 flowers as they find each in its season. Educators in 

 all nature study urge the children to bring fresh speci- 

 mens, and thus unconsciously encourage the extinction 

 of the rare species of plant life in general. The chil- 

 dren of each district school thus hunting over a limited 

 area, soon, with childish strife, collect all the first and 

 fairest flowers in their path. By the close study neces- 

 sary, how^ever, for the child to produce a drawing of the 

 flower and its structural parts, a valuable lesson may 

 in time be learned. 



The story of fertilization, the necessity of the flower's 

 producing seeds in order to continue its successive gen- 

 erations, will not be forgotten by the true nature stu- 

 dent. But if the teacher were able to designate the 

 rarer plants of her district, and teach her children the 

 fatal results of continually gathering their flowers, she 

 might awaken in the minds of the young people a 

 higher reverence for the blossoms themselves, and 

 scruples against depriving generations of children to 

 come of their beauty. 



There is hardly a child in the first grade in our 

 schools who cannot tell the story of the bee and the 

 Moccasin-Flower, and why the wonderful lines and 



