OUR VANISHING WILD FLOWERS 



By Winthrop Packard 



'T'HREE hundred years ago when the Pilgrims landed 

 - the resources of this great American Continent, then 

 untouched by civilization, seemed boundless and inex- 

 haustible. For centuries, in the main, they so remained. 

 Only about fifty years ago came to us the first suspicion 

 that they might be otherwise. Suddenly, as time is 

 measured, it dawned upon us that there could be an end 



Courtesy of the Arnold Arboretum. 



KALMI.'ii LATIFOLIA. A BRILLIANT BORDER OF KAL- 

 MIA SET OFF BY THE SOMBRE GREEN BACKGROUND. 



to the Bison, the beaver, the passenger pigeon. Now 

 we know that they were not only going when we re- 

 realized it, but that they were practically gone. You 

 find people still searching for passenger pigeons, be- 

 lieving that they will be able to locate them and earn 

 the reward offered, so strong is the delusion that it is 

 impossible to so soon exterminate a once mighty species. 

 The same is true of our forests It is inconceivable 

 to the average man that we cannot go on in the old, 

 happy-go-lucky way, sweeping all before us, replacing 

 nothing and yet always having enough. Within less 

 than half a century this condition has come to be recog- 

 nized by the thoughtful and a remedy is sought. And 

 now we are beginning to be very thoughtful about the 

 future of our more beautiful wild flowers. For already 

 over wide areas where they were once common, we miss 

 them. Always they are the most beautiful and most en- 



dearing species. We tramp to their accustomed haunts 

 at the blossom season, our hearts full of their fragrance, 

 our minds assured that they will greet us as of old 

 and they are not there. Perhaps the stream that watered 

 them has been depleted, or the trees that sheltered them 

 have been cut. More likely, we find the ground trampled 

 where they were uprooted by someone who loved them 

 not wisely nor too well, but only greedily. 



There are those who love the wood rose and leave it 

 on its stalk, who are indeed fit to be the friends of Emer- 

 son and Thoreau, but they are still far too few for the 

 good of the wild life which they seek to protect and 

 their voices as yet are those of prophets, crying in the 

 wilderness, little heeded by the world of men. 



The trouble lies in part in the greed of humanity, more 

 in its carelessness, most of all in its ignorance. Its reme- 

 dies would seem to be indicated in the reverse ratio. To 

 save our vanishing wildlife we must educate, admonish, 

 restrain restrain where we must, admonish where we 

 may, educate always and persistently. 



The people who find enjoyment in killing and destroy- 

 ing are numerous still, people whose innate impulses in 

 the open leads them to kill the bird, to cut the tree, to 

 pluck the wild flower through some inborn desire for 

 possession which can be gratified in no other way. But 

 there is a far larger and we must believe growing class 

 who get value, not from shooting the bird but from 

 watching it live and studying its habits, by associating 

 with it alive rather than gloating over it dead, who 

 would rather know the tree and enjoy its shade than to 

 cut it and to whom the living, growing wild flowers give 



THE BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS OF KALMIA, OR MOUN- 

 TAIN LAUREL. ARE BORNE IN LARGE DOME-SHAPED 

 CLUSTERS OF EXQUISITE PINK TO WAXY WHITE. 



