May, 1921 
FOREST AND STREAM 
207 
tify the splendid drives for which California is be- 
coming famous, is in part in the hands of the Cali- 
fornia legislature, which body and California’s gov- 
ernor will, it is hoped, before long act wisely on it. 
But this movement is not confined to California. 
It is becoming a live issue in many places in the 
Eastern States, and the Dominion of Canada has 
taken hold of it with interest and energy. The 
Ontario Department of Highways has announced 
its intention to prevent the destruction of trees 
along the highway — and not only the destruction 
of trees but their unnecessary mutilation. The 
work of caring for these trees is to be in the hands 
of the Department; and public utility companies, 
such as telephone, telegraph or power concerns, 
will not be permitted to cut trees without permis- 
sion and, when such permission is given, may re- 
move only those branches which must be taken 
away to permit the transmission of the current. 
Such utility companies have expressed themselves 
as in hearty agreement with the good purpose of 
the Department and promised to co-operate with it. 
The good work in this direction was initiated in 
California by the Save the Redwoods League, 
known for its splendid efforts in behalf of the pro- 
tection of these giant trees; while in Canada the 
forestry branch of the Dominion government has 
charge of the movement. 
The growth of the feeling in behalf of protection 
of natural things is most gratifying. Only recently 
it was actively expressed in the determination by 
the public to see that the national parks shall be 
reserved by the people for the use of the people. 
DISAPPEARING WILD FLOWERS 
I T is often said that civilization and improvements 
have nothing in common with natural things and 
that, as the occupation of a region advances, nature 
moves backward, and finally disappears. We see 
many examples of the truth of such statements. 
Yet the reason that they are many is more because 
people act without thinking of the results of their 
actions, than because improvement and nature are 
in conflict. The average American is heedless of 
the future; he thinks but little of anything except 
his immediate object, and is careless of the welfare 
of his fellows. So, acting only on his whims, he 
is selfishly destructive of life and beauty. 
When the first warm days come in spring and 
the flowers are in bloom, the city people who can 
get out into the country tear up with shocking 
thoughtlessness the blossoms scattered so lavishly 
about them, and which make the country beauti- 
ful, carry them for a little while and then, when 
they begin to wilt and fade, throw them away and 
perhaps after a short interval load themselves up 
with other blossoms as beautiful and as short-lived. 
Though the crime thus perpetrated is one of ig- 
norance, it is no less a crime; and though done 
without malice it is still an injury to other people 
who might have enjoyed the sight and smell of 
these flowers, now dead. In many places the re- 
sult of this thoughtlessness has been that some of 
our most beautiful wild flowers have become ex- 
tinct. Many of the destroyers, too, not satisfied 
with plucking the flowers or tearing off the 
branches from the shrubs and trees, pull up the 
smaller plants by the roots and thus complete their 
destruction. 
Happily, these matters today interest many more 
people than formerly they did. Forest and Stream 
has been writing about this evil for many years, 
and many societies for the protection of wild flow- 
ers have been formed. More work must be done to 
protect plant life and the work of education must 
be pushed further and further. Already some 
states have put on their statute books laws to pro- 
tect the plants. The extermination of trailing ar- 
butus in many points in Connecticut led to some 
such action as this, and a recent Maryland law 
forbids the removal of plants or even the plucking 
of a wild flower unless the written consent of the 
owner of the premises has been had, or the owner 
is personally present. A fine and possible imprison- 
ment are the punishments for such a misdemeanor. 
Far more useful than punishment, however, is 
a little gentle talk, an explanation of the beauties 
of the flowers and the danger of their extermina- 
tion. Most children, and indeed most adults, act 
purely from lack of thought and would readily re- 
spond to a little talk and a little persuasion. Yet 
the thoughtless selfishness that animates boys and 
young men who go out in winter to tear up the 
ground pine, the wintergreen and the green moss 
for purposes of sale, is hard to forgive, and the 
same may be said of the ignorant destruction 
wrought by the mother and her brood of children 
who get into the country in spring. 
The beauty — even the sacredness — of wild flow- 
ers ought to be a part of the education of every 
child. 
A NATIVE DINNER 
r T'HE great State of North Dakota is now famous. 
A At some cost to herself she is teaching the 
country at large lessons which are more or less 
needed. 
A lesson to be learned from some residents of her 
capital is of another sort and may be pleasant and 
profitable. There has been established there a so- 
ciety of nature lovers and naturalists who, under 
the title, “Friends of Our Native Wild Life,” are 
doing everything in their power to acquaint them- 
selves with, and to preserve, the mammals, birds, 
reptiles and plants of the locality about Bismarck. 
This town, situated on the border of the high 
prairie just above the bottom of the Missouri 
River, offers very favorable opportunities for na- 
ture study, and these opportunities are being used 
to the best advantage. 
In the neighborhood of Bismarck is still found 
much of the wild life of the high northern plains, 
though the larger forms, to be sure, disappeared 
long ago. Still, many native birds and smaller 
animals exist, the plant life, except in the immedi- 
ate vicinity of the city, is little changed, and many 
of the cultivated plants — corn, beans and squashes 
— that have been raised by the Indians since pre- 
historic times are still grown there. 
Not very long ago, the Society of Friends of 
Our Native Wild Life, at a monthly meeting, gave a 
native dinner at which all the foods on the menu 
were those indigenous to the western hemisphere. 
The dinner was followed by a discussion of the de- 
rivation and history of the various items of the 
menu ; and this discussion brought out much in- 
formation which, to all the diners was of great in- 
terest and, to most of them, entirely new. 
. This method of arousing interest in local natural 
history matters is unusual and seems worthy the 
attention of other naturalists’ societies. 
