SZ: AMERICAN FERN JoURNAL 
years; and states that the pickers say “they can see 
no diminution in the quantity or even the quality of the 
plants.” Mr. Rugg raises the question: “Does this 
collecting of fronds injure the plants themselves and 
in time kill them? As yet I have been unable to answer 
this question in a satisfactory way. It is true, doubt- 
less, that careless pickers are apt to disturb the roots, 
which may become exposed to the dry surface air. In 
time this exposure may cause the death of the plant.” 
It is further stated that ferns “are in more or less danger, 
from the many nurserymen who are now dealing in 
our hardy plants” and who “buy their plants directly 
from the collectors who despoil our woods of roots.” 
A reprinted newspaper clipping® states that ‘‘more 
than $30,000 has been paid out in the months of Sep- 
tember, October and the first part of November to 
gatherers of wild ferns in the four Bennington County 
towns of Woodford, Stamford, Searsburg and Reads- 
boro. The pickers were paid by the piece, four cents 
a hundred, and as there have been more than 6,000,000 
ferns shipped out of the mountains this season, the sum 
total is easily reached.” The hamlet Frank B. Tucker 
refers to is evidently one of these villages or in that 
vicinity. The clipping, as does Mr. Tucker in his 
article, speaks of lumber companies and _ individual 
property owners of “the mountain land on which the 
ferns are gathered” leasing ‘‘the picking privileges, 
instead of permitting free access to the property, as was 
formerly the case.’ 
Mr. E. J. Winslow quotes* from an article by F. E. 
Robertson in The Vermonter for October, 1915, regard- 
ing the fern picking industry ‘in the towns of Wood- 
ford, Searsburg, Stamford and Readsboro,” where ‘‘over 
* $30,000 Paid Fern Pickers. Am. Fern Journal 4: 28-29. Jan.—_March, 
spr of Ferns. Am. Fern Journal 6: 19-20. Jan.—March, 1916. 
