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other in their natural beauty, and then imagine spring, with the 
sweet fragrance of the flowers lacking, the cool and refreshing 
woods and copses removed, and the fields for miles and miles 
exposed to the burning sun. The latter condition will surely be 
our inheritance, unless some measures are taken to prevent it. 
To illustrate the tendency toward the extinction of some of our 
native species, let us consider the orchids of temperate climates. 
These beautiful flowers were previously very abundant and be- 
cause of their attractiveness would have been able to accomplish 
pollination successfully, and thereby continue the reproduction 
of their kind; but by indiscriminate picking because of their 
beauty, their number has been greatly reduced, and when the 
flower-lover finds one, if he loves flowers as he should, he refuses 
to pluck it, lest he too aid in its extinction. There are many 
other wild flowers, such as the mayflower, which have become 
comparatively rare, because of their superior fragrance; these 
flowers are gathered wherever possible and sold at a low price. 
Destruction by picking seems to be the penalty that man has 
put upon the flowers in return for the response of the flowers to 
the effects of all natural influences, whereby their beauty was 
first called into being. The picking of the most beautiful always 
leaves the least attractive to perpetuate their kind. If left to 
selection by nature, the more beautiful the flower, the better is 
the chance for cross pollination, and the continuance of its kind. 
Thus flowers have a tendency by natural selection to become more 
beautiful. When man picks the most beautiful flowers he can 
find, he therefore not only helps to eliminate the species, but is 
putting a premium on the development of the less beautiful. 
survive. Shall the survival of the fittest include those of beauty, 
or will man, untutored, determine that beauty is a factor to be 
eliminated, and aid against all nature, in the elimination of that 
beauty by satisfying an ignorant and perverted taste or greed? 
As there are laws prohibiting the sale of certain game, shot in 
