CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES 455 



the proceeds going to pay for the organ at the parish church. The report 

 of a beautiful wood absolutely stripped of spring flowers coincided with 

 a day's holiday at a large girls' school in the neighbourhood ; the pupils 

 were conveyed under authority to the spot and turned loose for the work 

 of destruction. Unfortunately such occurrences are too well known to 

 need further reference here. 



The spirit of acquisitiveness, of getting something for nothing, is hard 

 to fight. The gain too is often short-lived and scarcely worth while. 

 To dig up primroses and plant them in a garden is less effective than 

 sowing a few pennyworth of seed. Many of the flowers picked are 

 withered before they reach home and if not they don't, as a rule, last long 

 in water and, as any housewife will tell you, they drop and make a mess. 

 It is of course the picking wholesale that should be discouraged. No 

 one should want to prevent a child picking a handful of flowers, nor to 

 forbid the use of wild flowers for class-lessons in schools. But wherever 

 possible the school should have a garden which should, so far as possible, 

 supply the material required for study. Let the children collect seeds, 

 sow them and study the plant as it grows. Seeds of our wild plants 

 are distributed to members of the British Empire Naturalists' Association, 

 and of the South-Eastern Union of Scientific Societies by the seed exchange 

 section of the Union managed by Mr. B. T. Lowne. The list of seeds 

 available is published in the spring number of Countryside, the organ of 

 the B.E.N.A. 



Wild flower seeds may also be obtained from the Green Cross Society 

 (47 Victoria St., London, S.W. 1), or from Mr. C. S. Garnett, 6 The 

 Strand, Derby. Flora's League publishes a booklet by Mr. T. A. 

 Dymes on ' Growing Wild Flowers from Seed.' His rules on practical 

 methods, if followed, should ensure success. Mr. Dymes also insists 

 on the advantage of this method for an educational herbarium, as speci- 

 mens of a species at different life stages, or growing under different con- 

 ditions, may be added from one's own rearing. 



Schools may also obtain supplies of wild flowers from firms advertising 

 in the School Nature Study Journal, which guarantee to collect wild 

 plants only without risk to injury of the native flora. 



The public press might be a more efficient help in propaganda, and 

 advertisements of wild plants for sale, obviously uprooted without dis- 

 crimination, or notices of excursions for picking wild flowers in choice 

 localities, should be refused ; the Conservation Board has on occasion 

 protested against these when they have been brought to its notice. The 

 B.B.C. have, at holiday times, begged the public to leave for the enjoy- 

 ment of others what the individual is prone to take for himself. Effective 

 work might be done in this way from time to time by selected speakers. 

 Posters to attract the attention of the public have been widely distributed. 



Education of the children is the most promising method. A memo- 

 randum, prepared for the Board by Professors Salisbury and Weiss, has 

 been distributed by thousands throughout the teaching profession. The 

 county lists of species, to which I have referred above, will indicate where 

 plants of special interest, from their rarity or because they are in danger of 

 extermination, occur in the district. Such might be the subject of a special 

 lesson and the interest of the children enlisted in their preservation. 



