International Excursion in America. 327 
the whole of the north-eastern United States. Dr. Nichols 
informed us that the last remaining fragment in Connecticut was 
destroyed a year or two ago. The Three Oaks forest owes its 
preservation to the fine spirit of its owner, Mr. Warren, of Three 
Oaks, a feather-bone manufacturer. Mr. Warren originally bought 
the area for lumbering purposes, but was so greatly impressed 
by its beauty and interest that he has preserved it practically 
untouched, and is willing, we understand, to hand it over to a 
public authority, if guarantees can be obtained for its proper 
maintenance and preservation—a somewhat difficult matter. The 
members of the international party were delighted at having the 
opportunity of expressing to Mr. Warren’s sons—by whom they 
were taken to and from the forest in automobiles, and afterwards 
most charmingly entertained at lunch at the Lakeside Club—their 
sense of the great debt of gratitude which not only botanists, but 
all lovers of untouched nature owe to Mr. Warren senior in this 
matter. The imagination and insight into the deeper aesthetic and 
indeed spiritual needs of the community shown by Mr. Warren 
are at present all too rare among the business men of any country. 
But we may confidently expect a time to come when education and 
greater leisure has raised the general demand for and appreciation 
of the glories of unspoiled nature. Future generations will be 
slow to forgive us for the wholesale and often wanton destruction 
that goes on at present almost unchecked by any general feeling 
that it is an antisocial crime, and quick to applaud the actions and to 
reverence the memories of those who have done something to 
preserve their heritage of natural beauty. No one but a fanatic, 
indeed, entirely out of touch with the realities of life, would expect 
to hamper the economic development of a great country, which 
necessarily involves the replacement of forest and prairie by 
corn-fields and factories. But here and there tracts of original 
untouched nature can and should be preserved for the enjoyment 
and use of our successors, without in any way checking general 
and inevitable economic development. This is work which ought 
to be undertaken by the community, and indeed the great national 
and the smaller State “ parks ” of the west—three of which were 
visited by the international party—are a sign that America is 
awake to her responsibilities to the future in this matter. In the 
east the work of preserving unspoiled areas is more difficult, and 
there is less opportunity for it because comparatively little original 
vegetation is left. All honour, then, to those few who have the 
