346 



A PLEA FOR PROTECTION. 



sown at the same time, came up quickly, and the seed 

 that failed, sown later out of the same packet, germinated 

 readily. 



The reader may think I am making quite a plea for 

 the florists. Well, what if I am ? We are greatly in- 

 debted to them for the rare and beautiful flowers which 

 adorn our gardens. Our leading florists are reliable 

 men, and, as a rule, the plants they send out are what 

 they profess to be, and are generally offered at reason- 

 able rates. I think that the most of our failures result 

 from our own ignorance, carelessness and want of suit- 

 able advantages. If I sow pansy seed in sandy soil and 

 a very sunny position, I have no reason to expect flowers 



an inch across. If I sow portulaca seed in a moist and 

 shady place, I must not expect the bed to be brilliant 

 with flowers ; but if I reverse these positions and give to 

 each due care, I may expect success. If I plant very 

 fine seeds an inch beneath a hard, coarse soil and they 

 fail to come up, I have no right to complain of the seed, 

 nor if I sow it on the surface of a soft, fine soil, and neg- 

 lect to keep it moist. Some people think that putting 

 seed into the soil, whether it be sandy, clayey or mellow, 

 is sowing. There are many beautiful things which can 

 not be grown successfully outside of a greenhouse, and 

 it is not best for those who have none to try to cultivate 

 them. — Mrs. M. D Wellcome, Maine. 



A PLEA FOR PROTECTION. 



EING a misguided free-trader — 

 probably the result of a femi- 

 nine inability to understand 

 national politics — I look with 

 distrust on the very word pro- 

 tection, especially when it ap- 

 plies to bonnet-trimmings and 

 such small gear, but there is 

 one protective law I strongly plead for, and that is 

 a statute for the protection and preservation of 

 rare native plants. Many of the loveliest species 

 of our native flora are disappearing year by year, 

 not only in the vicinity of large cities, but also out 

 in the open country, especially in the haunts of the 

 summer boarder. It is, no doubt, a picturesque 

 and poetic sight to see a flower-laden train return- 

 ing from woods or mountains, bearing armfuls of 

 drooping "posies," but to a real flower lover it is 

 an absolute slaughter of the innocents. It is not 

 so harmful when the irrepressible flower picker can 

 be persuaded to treat the plant as Isaak Walton 

 did his bait, to handle it tenderly, as if loving it. 

 But unfortunately, the flowers are usually gathered 

 after the fashion of a dentist extracting a refractory 

 eye-tooth, and the plant is fortunate if it escapes 

 without permanent injury. 



A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and this tru- 

 ism applies very freely to the amateur botanists afflicted 

 with the herbarium mania. The collection of an her- 

 barium is thoroughly praise-worthy and commendable 

 in itself, but when an entire class is fired with a unani- 

 mous determination to collect all the rare specimens to 

 be found in a district the local flora seems likely to be 

 seriously diminished. Orchids and ferns are usually the 

 greatest sufferers ; among the latter the dainty native 

 maiden-hair, the climbing fern {J.ygodium palmaliDit) 

 and the walking fern [Camplosorus rhizophyUtts) are 

 the greatest sufferers. Their beauty and rarity makes 

 them the prey of collectors both botanical and the re- 



verse, and it really appears as if their total extinction 

 would soon be accomplished. The walking fern is 

 always rare and local ; I myself have seen it but once, 

 though accustomed to woodland tramps. On this one 

 occasion I met with a patch nearly a yard square, grow- 

 ing over a boulder ; I did not touch a single leaf, but 

 just admired it with the hearty appreciation one gives 

 to a rare plant in a greenhouse — the fantastic little 

 loops taking mincing steps from place to place, covering 

 the gray rock with living green. I returned to that 

 place a month or two later, to find that some vandal 

 had literally skinned the poor old boulder, dragging up 

 my cherished plant by the roots, leaving baldness in- 

 stead of beauty. This is but one instance ; there are 

 many like it, and ferns are among the greatest sufferers 

 from those who can not admire a plant or flower unless 

 it is actually in their possession. 



Adiantum and lygodium are very often destroyed by 

 enthusiastic young women with a weakness for pressed 

 ferns ; they are both scarce and local, and have already 

 disappeared from many of their old habitats. Between 

 the destruction of the shelter afforded by woodlands 

 and the destruction of the plants themselves there seems 

 very little chance for the survival of the fittest. 



Is there a lovelier native shrub than the kalmia, with 

 its shiny leaves and faintly blushing flowers ? Look at 

 it in the winter, with the glossy green showing against a 

 background of snow ; or in the summer, when the 

 stamens spring from the sides of the delicate cup, as 

 they discharge a regular volley of pollen at the pistil. 

 It is always beautiful, but year by year it is diminishing. 

 Every winter the kalmia is stripped for Christmas greens ; 

 the growth is utterly spoiled, even where the plant is 

 not killed. Add to this the destruction caused by forest 

 fires, and one may imagine that within two or three de- 

 cades we shall have to go to Central Park to see the only 

 kalmia within a large radius about New York. 



Between flower hunters in summer and evergreen 

 hunters in the winter our flora seems in rather hard 

 luck — but what can we do about it ? Legislative action 

 would be as inefficient as the laws for the protection of 

 song birds, which will remain practically a dead letter, 



