Carolina acres for a mountain forest reserve. Keeping many thou- 
sand acres for her own use, she has given the remainder, stocked as it 
is with millions of carefully kept trees, to the government as a pre- 
serve. In the whole Appalachian range there is no greater variety of 
splendid trees than that at Biltmore, and the gift is a valuable addi- 
tion to the nation's possessions. 
Several landowners have united to present to the government 
5,000 acres of beautiful lakes and mountains near Bar Harbor, and 
this has just been created into a national park, the first to be estab- 
lished east of the Mississippi. There are other tracts of exquisite 
scenery now in private hands which might as well, for all the use their 
owners make of them, pass under government control, and it is hoped 
that these two examples of public spirit may urge this disposition of 
them. 
These conspicuous gifts ought also to remind us that we have 
beauty to save here at our own doors. The dune country will be lost 
if something is not soon done. The outer park or forest preserve en- 
terprise is sluggishly moving. The Skokie valley, the Sag, and the 
Desplaines river country are too valuable to be neglected. These 
are our jewels. Why do we neglect them? — The Chicago Tribune. 
July 17th and 25th, 1916. 
Impressions of 
The New York Peony Show 
I have just returned from the great Peony Show held in New York 
June 9th, 10th and nth, and I am taking it for granted that you would 
like to hear another amateur's impressions of the show. The real 
peony enthusiast, who grows and loves his own flowers, who visits 
them many times each day during their blooming season, and, who 
conjures up their forms and beauties to his mental vision during 
their dormant season, can not restrain his anxiety to actually see other 
varieties of which he hears marvelous stories of beauty, and color, and 
shape, and size. 
And so I deserted my own garden for six days just to see LeCygne, 
LaFrance, Kelway's Glorious, Tourangelle, Solange, Raoul Dessert, 
Martha Bulloch and a dozen other varieties whose fame has extended 
to my own little Ohio town. Of course I took a few varieties with me 
from my own garden, because I realized that if I wanted to see flowers 
from other gardens, it was only fair that I should go to a little extra 
trouble to show the best from my own. 
That I had brought these flowers with me was of the greatest ad- 
vantage because it established my identity with the Society and placed 
