THE PRESERVATION OF OUR WILD PLANTS 



395 



sure to follow, after which the grey rocks appear among the blackened 

 stumps."* Mr. B. E. Fernow, Chief of the Forestry Division of the 

 U.S. Department of Agriculture, wrote in 188G of " a use to which no 

 other civilised nation puts its forests. I refer to the 10 million acres or 

 so of woodland burnt over every year, intentionally or unintentionally, 

 by which a large amount of timber is killed or made useless ; and, what 

 is worse, the capacity of the soil for tree growth is diminished." f This 

 last remark is so true that this total destruction of forests means the loss 

 also of many beautiful woodland flowers, so that the flower-lover is 

 certainly interested in forest conservation. Little or nothing, it might 

 seem, can be done to prevent such clearing where the advance of an 

 increasing population makes the land sufficiently valuable to pay for its 

 conversion to agricultural or building purposes. Some few beautiful 

 tracts of woodland in the neighbourhood of large towns may be preserved 

 as public parks or places of recreation, as in the cases of Epping Forest, 

 or Bronx Park, New York, or even of the Yellowstone and Banff National 

 Parks ; but this can be but to a small extent : our growing populations 

 must be housed, and the demand for timber must be met. Herein, how- 

 ever, lies the consolation : economic considerations come into play : men's 

 pockets are concerned ; and consequently laws regulating the felling of 

 timber are gradually being added to those regulating the killing of game. 



So, too, in other cases where an article of commercial importance is 

 at stake. About the year 1810 Kamehameha, King of Hawaii, was in 

 receipt of about $400,000 a year for sandalwood, with the result that, 

 with the exception of New Caledonia, where they are cultivated, the 

 species of Santalum are now almost extinct on the islands of those seas.+ 

 Again, between 1854 and 1875 over 12 million pounds of gutfca percha 

 were exported from Sarawak alone, meaning the death in those twenty 

 years of at least 3 million trees. § Our imports of " gutta percha," so 

 called, for 1890 alone were nearly 8 million pounds, representing perhaps 

 2 million trees ; but before that year it was announced that the tree 

 yielding the true gutta percha, or rather "gutta taban," Palaquium 

 (Dicliopsis) Gutta, had ceased to exist in a wild state.[| Botanists may 

 find substitutes for sandalwood and gutta percha, or it will prove com- 

 mercially worth while to cultivate these plants. I have to-day to appeal 

 to other than commercial instincts. 



Though many species of flowering plants in the British Isles have 

 undoubtedly been much reduced in numbers, and some are now apparently 

 on the verge of extinction, it is somewhat strange that I am not prepared 

 to mention a single case in which extinction has actually taken place, so 

 far, that is, as our whole archipelago is concerned. This may be due in 

 part to the imperfect investigation of our flora in former times. One of 

 the nearest cases of extinction would seem to be one recorded by Mr. 

 Druce, which is connected with forestal operations. A great -gale in 1895 

 blew down large numbers of pines at Loch Tay near the habitat for a 



* Quoted by Miss RuthE. Messenger in TJie Preservation of our Native Plants. 

 f Annual Report of the Division of Forestry for 188G, p. 155. 

 J Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th edition, vol. xxi., p. 25G. 

 § Ibid., vol. xi., p. 339. 



|| Ann. du Jard. hot. Buitenzorg, v. (1880), p. 1. 



n 2 



