BOTANY AND THE LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL 175 
that each child in a class could have one. It is difficult to draw 
the line between an ‘ object-lesson” and a * botany lesson,”’ and 
Aipove schools which took either ‘ botany”’ as a subject for the elder 
8, or ‘ os cere ager object-lessons ” in the middle of the school, 
that they might have the wena packed i in some 
order throughout the year for teaching purposes. To do so involved 
picking, though not uprooting, a certain ster of common flowers 
Lond 
n themselves and usefal as providin aterials. In laying 
a part of the park at Avery Hill that has been thought of. Both 
rovided and non-provided schools owers, gras 
ses 
twigs, &c., for their object-lessons, and seem to find them useful. 
The Avery Hill grounds would have had to be laid out anyhow, 
and there seems to be no reason why ot ‘aa eae County Council 
should not think of the schools in laying t out. 
is so far as the charge of “ wilful wie of the ratepayers’ 
” seems natiabaiey enough: it remains to deal with the 
pene raised in Nature Notes; and here again the information 
— supplied to us seems satisfactor ry. 
to the collection of botanical specimens, the greater part of 
the neti ei are gathered from the Council's parks, privately 
owned gardens and lands, and until quite ome ae the Royal 
Parks, consisting largely of the waste produce, ings, &c. The 
extent to which specimens are gathered at or near iasidashen | is very 
small, and is limited almost solely to buttercups, chickweed, and 
shepherd’s-purse, which are numerous, and of which only a fow are 
taken. Rare plants are never taken. An undertaking not to up- 
root or in any way damage the character of the flora, &c., is always 
given whenever the permission of owners for facilities to gather 
Specimens is sought or obtained. This rule is ow rigidly observed 
whenever any material is taken at or near roads 
The statement quoted from the Daily Eapress ‘relative to cycles 
is inaccurate. No cycles a supplied by the Council. e staff 
are allowed a rate of one penny per mile when using their own 
cycles in the Council’s abies: provided that the rate does not 
exceed railway fare, or if the place visited is not readily accessible 
by rail or other ordinary means of travelling. This rate is exactly 
half of the rate granted to officers of the Board of Education when 
making official j jouer by their own cycles. 
The anxiety of the Selborne Society as expressed in its organ 
tivity in combating the wanton destruction of roadside beauty 
se now senile throughout the entire country. The disfigure- 
t of trees an the continual paring. of roadsides and 
erebing of hedge- aeons the parings and scrapings in 
