142 Annals of Horticulture. 



midst of a population whose interpretation of the floral king- 

 dom was a bunch of paper roses in the winter and an india 

 rubber plant dominating a bed of pickling cabbage vegetation 

 in summer, and it would inevitably perish of its own inconsis- 

 tency. The centering point must of course be a city large 

 enough and closely enough in touch with the world and con- 

 temporary life to permit of resort to the most approved meth- 

 ods of organization and administration ; but such a city re- 

 quired in turn to be set among fruit and flowers and penetra- 

 ted daily by the influences of nature. Of the various localities 

 falling within range of these stipulations, Wilmington, Dela- 

 ware, appeared best fitted for the Association's purpose and 

 it was selected accordingly. The secretary's office in this city 

 is in charge of a gentleman well known for his devotion to 

 floriculture. 



"These were the preliminaries. That the idea set forth in 

 the tentative essay, ' Shall We Save Our Wild Flowers?' was 

 destined eventually to take root in the public mind its projec- 

 tors cherished no doubt. But they were content to feel that 

 they must hasten slowly, overcoming much inertia in the 

 course of their progress. They had been confronted with the 

 fact that while whatever in native growths was coarse, rank, 

 vile, whatever was offensive to touch, to sight, to smell, grew 

 and flourished apace ; w^iatever was beautiful,^ graceful, fra- 

 grant, if it had not already vanished beyond recall, was perish- 

 ing swiftly and surely. At fairs and flower shows held in 

 Eastern cities whose skirting woodlands were within their re- 

 membrance fair with arbutus, clematis, cowslip, with orchid 

 and azalea and laurel, they were forced to see that over 

 against the lavish wealth of English, Dutch, German flowers, 

 of flowers from Japan, China, Africa, Australia, there was set 

 not a blossom or plant or shrub indigenous to the soil of the 

 state. But there had appeared to be so willing a submission 

 to this condition of things, such unprotesting acquiescence 

 in the vandal practice of pillaging and plundering every chance 

 spot in which wild flowers yet survived, the stripping bare of 

 each surburban building site, the uprooting of every vine and 

 creeper and shrub from picnic woods and tenting grounds, 

 that to hope for a ready welcome for so 'disturbing' an in- 

 stitution as the A. W. F. C, would have suggested itself as 

 unreasonable. 



