22 
NATURE NOTES 
economy, to disfigure various commons and public open spaces 
by the erection of more of the hateful poles and wires with 
which too much of our land is already defaced. Epping Forest 
is their latest point of attack — an open space, secured by the 
Corporation of London, to be preserved in its natural condition, 
and dedicated by Her late Majesty in person, to the public in 
perpetuity. Railway and tramway companies have since threat- 
ened this sacrosanct national preserve, only to be defeated by 
an overwhelming public opinion. While we go to press, a 
deputation is waiting upon the Postmaster-General, in which 
the Commons Preservation Society and our own Society are 
co-operating in the endeavour to avert this danger. The needful 
wires can be readily carried underground, by the side of the 
roads, of which there are — if anything — too many through this 
narrow strip of forest. 
The Disfigurement of our Roadsides — a criticism. — 
The Journal of Botany, for January, commenting on the action of 
the Devon County Council as to wild plants, says: — 
“ It must be obvious to anyone who goes about the country with his eyes open, 
that the local authorities themselves are the greatest enemies of our native 
vegetation. In all the counties round London the hedges are mercilessly and 
quite unnecessarily clipped ; the hedgebanks are scarified every year, and the 
native undergrowth is destroyed, to make room for nettles and other unsightly 
weeds which thrive under the new system and disfigure our land ; the grassy 
roadsides are every year more and more trenched upon, and, when allowed to 
remain, are used as dumping-grounds for road-scrapings. To make matters 
worse, the clippings and torn-up plants are in many cases not removed, but are 
left to wither where they have fallen, thus further disfiguring the already marred 
hedgebank. We are at a loss to understand how it is that the Selborne Society, 
which one would expect to be foremost in opposing mischief of this kind, has 
apparently taken no action in the matter, which, so far as we are aware, does not 
even receive due attention in Nature Note.s, the Society’s magazine.” 
This is a matter to which attention has several times been 
directed, both in these pages and at the Annual Meetings of the 
Society. It is one in which, in our opinion, useful work can 
probably best be done by individuals able to influence local 
urban and rural district councils, parish councils, tk.c., as there 
is no central body which the Society can approach ; and we 
would, therefore, once more appeal to our Branches to do what 
they can in this matter. 
The Preservation of Wild Plants — .\ Practical Sug- 
gestion. — “The decision of the Devon County Council to stop, 
by the infliction of a fine, the wholesale uprooting of flowers and 
ferns in hedges and woodlands, has been made none too soon. 
Already the lanes have been robbed of much of their beauty for 
the sake of the small gain to be made from the spoils, and it 
does not seem that the excuse of actual need can be pleaded for 
the raiders. It is to be regretted that the desire of adding to a 
small income should not have prompted them rather to some 
form of industry by which the county would have been the 
better instead of the worse. d'he cultivation of herbs, for 
