126 ALPINE FLOWERS AND GARDENS 



funds garden after garden had to be abandoned 

 and left to the tender mercies of goats and tourists 

 ' ces rasoirs du globe,' who, vulture-like, soon left 

 little else but the dry bones. At length, however, 

 with experience bought and enthusiasm aroused 

 6 to sticking point,' several gardens have been firmly 

 established, and are flourishing abundantly, not 

 only as refuges for floral rarities, but also as 

 distilleries of a purer-principled public spirit with 

 regard to the flora in general. And each year sees 

 fresh gardens springing up, educating the popular 

 mind. For it is not alone against the depredations 

 of the tourist that this movement is directed. It 

 is aimed quite as much, and even more directly, at 

 the herbalist, at the collector for nurseryman and 

 florist, and at the peasant who hawks the rarer 

 plants on the markets of the villages and towns. 

 The rapacious collector who sends plants out of 

 their native country by thousands is by no means 

 peculiar to the Swiss Alps ; he is prowling about 

 all over the globe, openly vaunting his ' cuteness ' 

 in removing every vestige of this or that plant from 

 its native habitat. Something had to be done to 

 correct this man's morals, or make him ashamed or 

 afraid to put them into practice, at any rate in 

 Switzerland. What North Borneo could do for its 



