12 Nature threatened 
and have been utilised for agriculture 
and industry, so that in many civilised 
States, there is now no primitive 
fenland at all. From the standpoints 
both of industry and health, this state 
of things is admirable ; but from the 
scientific one at least, it is deplorable 
that the vegetation linking the present 
to the past should be destroyed^ be- 
fore scientists have become fully ac- 
quainted with it. It would be absurd 
to expect that no portion of the fens 
should be used ; but no country is so 
poor that it cannot preserve one or 
two tracts of fen for the purpose of 
study and education. In Great Britain, 
strips of Wicken Fen and Burwell 
Fen in Cambridgeshire are safe- 
guarded by the National Trust (see 
pages 75 and 84). In Germany also 
1 Conwentz, H. Die Gefahrdung der Flora der 
Moore. P7vmetheus^ xni. Jahrgang. Berlin, 1902, 
S. 161. 
