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of them having been purchased from the Stokes collection for 

 the Protection of Our Native plants prepared at the New York 

 Botanical Garden. Some of these slides were used during the 

 early spring in an appeal for the protection of the flowers staged 

 through the courtesy of the local moving-picture theater. This 

 method proved an effective means of advertising the objects of 

 the society. The pictures, with their accompanying appeal, 

 were exhibited for an entire week, a change of slides being made 

 daily. The local plants most urgently in need of protection were 

 all thus brought to the attention of the citizens of the town. 



The use of the press was not neglected in the work of the chap- 

 ter. One thousand reprints of a previously published paper re- 

 lating to the protection of the wild flora* were distributed among 

 the newspapers and other periodicals of Pennsylvania. The 

 appeal received country-wide circulation due to its recognition 

 by the American Review of Reviews, which reviewed the article 

 at length in the July number, 1916. 



The influence exerted by the society may well be illustrated 

 by an incident which occurred in the spring of 1917. While 

 home during the Easter vacation, one of the students entered 

 into a pact with a Philadelphia florist to supply annually 75,000 

 fern fronds as a means of securing money to pay the expenses of 

 college. The fronds were to be collected in the mountains sur- 

 rounding the college, with no regard for the future of these slow- 

 growing plants. Learning of the work of the Wild Flower 

 Society, the student consulted the organization before attempting 

 this wholesale depredation on the beauty of the local flora. 

 Needless to say, the contract with the florist was never filled. 

 Had such an attempt been allowed, the ferns of the region would 

 have been in grave danger of extermination before the graduation 

 of the student, a shameless encroachment upon the rights of 

 others. Though in this instance the removal of the ferns would 

 no doubt have greatly benefited the individual student, the doc- 

 trine of the greatest good for the greatest number demanded in 

 all fairness that the fern flora remain undisturbed for the enjoy- 

 ment of the nature-lovers of the future. The Pennsylvania 



* Our Disappearing Wild Flowers, by Albert A. Hansen, The Pennsylvania 

 State Farmer, May, 1916. 



