SIEUR DE MONTS PUBLICATIONS 



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"There are few things in the course of journeys which 

 one recalls with more pleasure than parks and gardens 

 which combine opportunities for studying the flora of a 

 country with the enjoyment of natural beauty/' 



James Bryce. 



M. L. FERNALD 



Professor of Botany at Harvard University 

 Curator of the Gray Herbarium 

 Former President New England Botanical Society 



One of the commonest sights in the wilder districts of 

 our once densely timbered eastern States is vast stretches 

 of burned and wasted land, desolate and unproductive. 



Now, nearly all the native plants which originally 

 inhabited these desolated areas have a peculiarly modi- 

 fied root-structure which renders it impossible for them 

 to grow in any soil other than the moist and spongelike 

 forest humus, to life in which their whole development 

 has been shaped for ages past. 



The immediate effect, then, of the removal of the forest 

 and burning over of its leafy floor is the complete annihi- 

 lation of countless lesser plants, wild flowers and ferns 

 in hundreds of beautiful and interesting species which 

 give the primeval forest of the region its great natural 

 charm. 



The evil does not stop, however, with the destruction of 

 the native woods and wild flowers and the gradually ac- 



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