THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
47 
ters, alone, protect the violet. Even the farmer with plow and 
hoe can hardly dislodge them. Let him plow them under and 
cultivate his crops in their steady and in autumn he shall find vio- 
lets blooming again in the midst of his com field. 
While it is a good thing to have societies for the protection of 
the native plants that need it, it would seem equally desirable for 
such societies to give us lists of the plants which can do* without 
their help — plants of which we may pull up as much as we please 
without feeling guilty of thus spoiling somebody's pleasure the 
following season. The list at best cannot be perfectly arbitrary 
from the fact that the necessity for protection depends somewhat 
upon the locality. The white trillium is scattered through some 
of the remote forests with an extravagance that seems almost 
wasteful; in other localities it is as rare as an orchid. But 
orchids are rare only near cities. On the borders of mountain 
lakes far from civilization, there are often tO' be found acres of 
Pogonias, and Calopogons and the small purple fringed orchis is 
frequently nearly as common. 
There are certain people in every community who must pick 
flowers if they enjoy their outing, measuring their happiness 
somewhat by the number of rare blossoms they have been able to 
obtain. Such people, however, can scarcely be said to enjoy the 
flowers^ — they only enjoy picking them. A spray of columbine 
growing from a cleft in some gray rock, a water lily riding at 
anchor on the surface of the lake, or the mountain laurel filling 
the underwoods with a cloud of bloom, have a charm in their 
habitat that he who^ removes them vainly attempts to bring with 
him. The truest enjoyment oi the flowers, after all, is to be 
found only when they nod from their own stalks in their chosen 
environment. 
BOOKS AND WRITERS. 
— John Coleman Adams, the author of ''Nature Studies in 
Berkshire," has written a life of the Artist-Naturalist, William 
Hamilton Gibson, which has just been published. 
