FIFTH REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 1908 



79 



wooden telephone pole with its crosstrees is today in our cities 

 and villages the cross on which every sentiment of good and decent 

 taste is crucified. There are persons in most every community who 

 can be better spared than some of its venerable trees. It is not 

 only the age of a tree that entitles it to guardianship ; there are 

 some which have especial associations with distinguished person- 

 ages of the past, others may be the last survivors of a race which 

 once abounded but whose companions have disappeared under the 

 woodsman's axe. A great glacial rock boulder projecting alone- 

 from some meadow or hillside, tells a romantic age long story 

 which should not be menaced by the workman's sledge. Tl^ere are 

 bits of swamp still profuse in rare orchids, and clumps of woodland: 

 where the rare birds still nest but which will soon be robbed of. 

 their possessions if measures are not taken for their protection. 



Let us cite, for an example, the Bergen swamp in Genesee county, 

 famous among botanists as a spot where still linger the Painted 

 trillium, yellow Clintonia, the twin flower or Linnaea and rare- 

 orchids such as the White cypripedium and numerous northern 

 plants which, scarce or wanting in all other localities of western 

 New York, thrive in the cool recesses of this spot or on its open 

 bogs among the Cranberries, Huntsman's cup and Andromedas. 

 Here northern birds, the Hermit thrush, Winter wren and Cana- 

 dian warbler find their breeding place. Here are the coverts' of the 

 Grouse, Woodcock and other game birds and a center of their 

 dispersal. The indwellers in this place are threatened by the in- 

 cursions of commerce, of ruthless sport, of agricultural aggression, 

 but this swamp if protected would not alone continue to play its 

 part in regulating the flow of the river which runs out of it into 

 the Genesee, but afford a reserve for its rare flowers and birds and 

 form a charming bit of the North Woods — a boreal island — in 

 western New York, with the towns of Rochester, Batavia, Buffalo, 

 Tonawanda, Lockport, Medina and Albion within easy reach of its 

 attractions. 



In Germany, substantial progress has been made in protecting 

 such objects of natural interest. The methods employed and the 

 results achieved are interesting. An old fir tree gnarled with years 

 in the forest of Lueneburg is set apart and protected for its very 

 age and fascinating ugliness. A little patch of dwarf birch, a rare 

 survivor of the postglacial flora, is preserved and protected in the 

 vicinity of Hamburg. A considerable area of forest near Muen- 

 ster is protected because of its profusion in certain rare species of 

 lichens. In Schleswig a great glacial boulder resting on a low knoll 

 has been set aside, the ground immediately about it acquired and a 

 road laid out to it. In Brandenburg a little lake with its swamp, the 

 Plage, has been reserved on account of its botanic interest and in 

 Marienwerder a bit of lake and woods where rare water birds nest. 

 A local society in Gotha has acquired a small pond and swamp and 

 has transferred to it rare plants threatened with extinction and has 

 also introduced new plants foreign to the region, such as our com- 

 mon Sarracenia or Pitcher-plant. 



