202 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



years ago great golden fields of these exquisites of the 

 open plenteously adorned the southern half of the State. 

 Then tourists began pulling them up by the armful — ^by 

 the roots. Not with the wish to elsewhere establish 

 poppy loveliness through transplanting, did these vandals 

 uproot this jewel of wild flowerdom, but only to feed that 

 coarse passion which dehghts in destroying flowers, kill- 

 ing birds, and marring roadside signs. So ravaged are 

 those once joyously laden fields that now one must actu- 

 ally seek them, as one looks for the big trees, in certain 

 sequestered spots. 



"California should enact a law protecting its remaining 

 poppies, because to get a sight of those golden fields has 

 taken many a traveler to the Coast; and California's 

 natural beauties are assets which the Californians will 

 be wise in safeguarding against foreign vandalism and 

 native gluttony. 



"Unhappily, California's despoiled fields offer only 

 another grievous example of the pillage of wild-flower 

 plunderers throughout our land. The rich cardinal 

 flower, once to be found over all New England, has be- 

 come a rarity ; the State flower of Minnesota — the mocca- 

 sin plant, formerly so abundant— grows now only in lo- 

 calities remote from settlements. 



"And the destruction of these beautifiers of our work- 

 a-day world is so wanton ! It isn't so much what is taken 

 as it is what is killed in the getting. It isn't enough 

 that the marauders must pull up the flowers by the roots, 

 but they trample into the earth and kill those of the imme- 

 diate vicinity. And nine times out of ten one half of the 

 blossoms gathered are thrown away! 



"Give the wild flowers a chance for their lives, I be- 

 seech, if not because they make the fields inviting and 

 bring cheer even into the sordid perspective — I had nearly 

 written soul; fancy a vandal with a soul! — ^then for the 

 material business reason that, like the birds and the ani- 

 mals of field and forest, they profit you and your dollar- 

 making community more in life than in death. 



