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through: a scientifically planned garden with its geometrically 
designed flower-beds, or a pleasant ramble in the woods and fields 
of nature with their diversity of irregularly distributed flowers? 
In fact, it is this very irregularity of the distribution of the 
flowers which adds one of the greatest charms to nature. Are 
not the flowers a hundred times more beautiful when we come 
upon them suddenly, and in the most unexpected places? For 
“Beauty is more beautiful when beauty's least expected.” 
Nature is generous, very generous, and permits all who would 
to enjoy her beautiful domains; to inhale the fragrance of her 
odorous flowers, and to feast their eyes on her iridescent hues. 
Very different from this is the behavior of man. No doubt, 
should he ever be able to make anything that even approaches 
in attractiveness the laurel-covered mountains and hillsides of 
the Alleghanies or the vast fields of golden-rod in October, he 
would surround it with a ten-foot fence and a double tier of 
barbed wire to confine its beauties to a few of his select 
friends, 
And how does man show his appreciation of nature’s generos- 
ity? Byselfishly tearing out the most charming flower he finds, 
and thus, while he does not enjoy its beauty very much longer, 
deprives others of enjoying it; and, by keeping the plant from 
producing seed, deprives himself and everybody else of that enjoy- 
ment in after years. 
There was a time in the history of this country when the hand- 
some pink moccasin flower flourished in great numbers in the 
deep woods; but a public who, with no thought of the future, 
picked every specimen it could find, and an immense horde 
of “orchid hunters” whose minds know only the lust for gold, 
have so reduced its numbers that, even though each flower that 
does set seed produces upward of a million seeds, it is now ex- 
tremely rare in its wild state, and the discovery of one during a 
ramble in the woods is considered an event. The blue gentian is 
another case. Once so common, it is now rare in its native 
haunts. Greedy street venders who ruthlessly tear up the plant 
by the yard, and the public without even the excuse of eking 
out a paltry income by its sale, have rendered the fragrant, 
