MR. F. LONG ON PROTECTION OF WILD PLANTS. 
603 
the principal Natural History Societies throughout the country 
for the purpose of getting the law amended. He also asked the 
secretary of the Cotteswold Society to obtain these resolutions 
for him when possible. 
It will now be for our Society, after I have given the details 
of the Report as approved by the Cotteswold Field Club, to 
discuss the subject in its bearings on the county of Norfolk, 
and to pass any resolution or resolutions, which can then be 
forwarded to Mr. Mellersh, the secretary of the committee. 
In their report, the committee considered that if an association 
were formed, there was no reason why it should necessarily be 
formed on the lines of the Devon one, and thought it much 
better that they should adapt lines of their own for the reason 
that the two counties did not in any way compare in plant 
distribution, and that what applied very forcibly in one would 
be of no avail in the other. 
The association in Devonshire consists of a Society of which 
each member subscribes to a common fund which is used for 
paying a man to conduct prosecutions, paying watchers, &c. 
They also solicit the aid of editors of papers to give publicity 
to facts bearing on the general question. 
In coming to any decision whether or not an association 
should be formed here in Norfolk, I think it will be necessary 
first to ascertain, as the Cotteswold Club did, whether there is 
much professional plant stealing going on in the county. That 
a certain amount goes on is only too evident. What are the 
principal kinds of plants taken and whether any of the rare 
plants get into the bag of the professional stealer and so should 
be protected. The only plants I think that are taken in this 
way are Ferns and Primroses, the former chiefly from the dis- 
trict comprised in about a ten-mile radius of Holt, the latter, 
of course, from all parts. The professional stealer takes those 
plants that he can readily dispose of to people with gardens, 
and in the case of Ferns, the worst of it is, he takes them in 
the spring when there is no chance of their living after being 
transplanted, and they ultimately die and are lost altogether. 
The rare plants of the county are chiefly dear to botanists, and 
are hardly known to the tramp. Still there are a few exceptions. 
In Devon the only plants taken are Ferns and Primroses, and 
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