212 
THE PRESERVATION OF NATIVE PLANTS 
the writer remarks, “ There is something to make one’s hair 
stand on end in such a list,” and it is to be remembered that 
as there are two parties to such an exchange each transaction 
represents the wholesale spoliation of two habitats ; and also 
that a species of which even the flowers only are constantly 
gathered forms no seeds and is doomed to more or less 
speedy extinction. 
Having thus indicated the chief causes of extermination, 
which are alike in every country, let us consider if any means 
are available to check its disastrous progress. 
Probably it will be conceded that restrictive legislation or 
police interference is inapplicable, even if it were desirable. 
Yet we would suggest that wherever tracts of country are 
under the control of private persons or of specific local 
authorities, their assistance might be invoked to prohibit the 
promiscuous gathering of flowers, or at any rate the removal 
of roots. 
The Swiss naturalists have concluded that the best means 
of checking the trade in plants torn from the mountains is to 
raise them in the plains and so put them on the market at 
rates which will make the trade unremunerative, and for this 
end they have taken a large nursery at Geneva, the results of 
the experiment being so far considered very satisfactory. 
But the flora of Switzerland is more abundant and more 
special than our own, while Geneva is a natural centre where 
the botanical visitor is brought face to face with the condensed 
epitome of the flora which is the object of his interest. We 
doubt, therefore, whether a similar mode of proceeding would 
prove effective here. Yet it would doubtless contribute to 
some extent to the preservation of our flora, so far as its 
extermination is a consequence of the desire to form collections 
of native plants, although it would form no barrier to the 
rapacity of the ignorant tourist, if the extravagant prices 
which one has now to pay were reduced, as they certainly 
might be in the case of all species easily propagated by sub¬ 
division or raised by seeds. 
It is, however, by the indirect influences of example and 
persuasion, and by the promotion of health)/ public opinion, that 
much more is to be effected. 
In the words of the Report on which I have based my 
remarks, “ Teachers and professors might effectually second 
us by inculcating upon their pupils the idea of the protection 
of rare plants, and by calling their attention in their botanical 
courses to the grievous consequences of this destruction, alike 
for science and even for the pleasures of the vulgar profane, 
by teaching in one word respect and love for Nature.” And 
