Readers will notice that this issue contains four more 

 pages than usual, but we hasten to say that this is but a 

 temporary increase made principally for the editor's 

 pleasure. However, the number will show what the jour- 

 nal will be like when the next enlargement, which is now 

 about due, is made. As we have repeatedly stated, the 

 number of pages will increase only as the subscription list 

 warrants. If you speak a good word for the magazine, it 

 results in more reading matter for yourself. Ask your 

 friend — the one who most frequently botanizes with you — 

 to subscribe. If subscribers double our subscription list, 

 we will promptly double the number of pages. Don't you 

 care enough about a forty -page magazine to hustle a 

 little for it? 



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No doubt the correspondent who asks, in the March 

 number of this magazine, why the poisonous species of 

 sumac (Rhus) were created, voices a query that often oc- 

 curs to others when contemplating plants that human ex- 

 perience has pronounced noxious, and as this query so sel- 

 dom receives an adequate reply, the editor is moved to ex- 

 press his own views on the subject in the hope of bringing 

 out the opinions of others. Had such a question been 

 asked a few years ago, we would have been assured that 

 the poison of the sumac is a feature in the plants evolu- 

 tion designed to protect it from its foes, but the facts do 

 not bear out this explanation. We call the plant poison 

 ivy because it poisons us but the cow eats it with impun- 

 ity. The nettle which is so irritating to us is apparently 

 a choice tid-bit for the soft-bodied larva of the comma 

 butterfly (Grapta) while the worm that is to become the 

 future sphynx-moth is a striking illustration of the fact 

 that chewing tobacco is not bad for the health — at least 



