9 8 SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



soils than in others. In the United States, even in the 

 neighbourhood of New York, it is a real danger, and is 

 recognised as such, but as appears from a letter which 

 I quote below, the reason of the dread which the 

 " poison-ivy " excites in the States depends on the fact 

 that it is not there a mere garden plant, but grows wild 

 in great abundance in the woodlands frequented by 

 holiday-makers and lovers of natural forest and lake- 

 side wilderness. The poisonous nature of the allied 

 species of Rhus used for the manufacture of " lacquer " 

 or varnish is recognised by the Japanese and others who 

 prepare this product and have to handle the plant they 

 wear gloves to protect the hands. 



As showing what kind of trouble the " poison-ivy " 

 and " poison-oak " (another kind of Rhus or Sumach} 

 give in the United States, I will quote a letter I have 

 received from an American lady well known in London 

 society. She says : " I have known, suffered, and 

 struggled against the poison-ivy in America from my 

 earliest years, when my poor mother lay for days with 

 blinded and swollen eyes, having gathered it inadvertently. 

 The ' poison-ivy,' as we call it, is a curse to country life, 

 outside the purely artificial and cultivated gardens, and 

 even there it creeps in insidiously." She describes a 

 beautiful farm property on Lake Champlain, on the 

 Canadian border, where she and her family would spend 

 many weeks in summer in order to enjoy the delights of 

 complete seclusion in wild, unspoilt country : " The one 

 and only drawback to the place was," she writes, " the 

 inexhaustible quantity of poison-ivy. Our first duty had 

 been to teach my two daughters and their governess how 

 to distinguish and avoid contact with it. The one and 

 only rule was that the poison-ivy has the clusters of 

 three leaflets (the middle leaflet with a longer stalk, 

 E.R.L}, whereas the woodbine (not the English wood- 



