SIEUR DE MONTS PUBLICATIONS 



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" Thete are few things hi the course of journeys whicJi 

 one recalls with more pleasure than parks and gardens 

 uliicli combine opportunities for studying the flora of a 

 country ivith the enjoyment of natural beauty." 



James Beyce. 



M. L. FERNALD 



Professor of Botany at Harvard University 



Curator of the Gray Herbarium 



Former President Xeiv England Botanical Society 



One of the commonest sights in the wilder districts of 

 our once densely timbered eastern States is vast stretches 

 of burned and wasted land, desolate and nuproductive. 



Now, nearly all the native plants which originally 

 inhabited these desolated areas have a peculiarly modi- 

 fied root-strnctnre which renders it impossible for them 

 to grow in any soil other than the moist and spongelike 

 forest humns, to life in which their whole development 

 has been shaped for ages past. 



The immediate effect, then, of the removal of the forest 

 and burning over of its leafy floor is the complete annihi- 

 lation of countless lesser plants, wild flowers and ferns 

 in hundreds of beautiful and interesting species which 

 give the primeval forest of the region its great natural 

 charm. 



The evil does not stop, however, with the destruction of 

 the native woods and wild flowers and the gradually ac- 



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