113 
STOKES PRIZE ESSAYS* 
THE PRESERVATION OF OuR NATIVE WILD FLOWERS 
icans are said to be extravagant people, wasting their 
useless. C 
of fishes and animals is more readily accomplished by the action 
of a whole community, but the preservation of wild flowers can 
be best accomplished by the individual efforts of every nature- 
lover 
a u imagine a world when no Jack-in-the-pulpit will greet 
you in the early days of springtime? And indeed, the beauty o 
e 
With a careless inand you pull it up and with a careless hand you 
fling it down. Every time you walk through the w 0 
should think of nature’s labor in bringing to life these aa 
creations. But the trouble with us as a nation is that we do not 
stop to think about it and each ss fewer plants push out their 
shoots from under the winter sno 
If laws were made against making wild flowers with their 
Do you ae a a law would avail us a: pees if we 
d d consider th ourse? 
It is very harmful to pull up the plants by their en but it 
t a 
vase on your aos but it sy die in a few days. Rather, let it 
or Day, May 7, 1915, in competition for 
the ee colored — of ee wers Needing Protection” framed and 
presented ae w York Botanical pile to the High Schools, and Public 
ools of Ni ke City, through the aid of the Fund for the Preservation of 
Native ae donated by Caroline and Olivia Phelps Stokes. 
