The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-03-26
PROTECT THE WILD FLOWERS.

PROIECE IHE WlHO FLU w iAhS'
 There are tens of thousands of peo- pie who love wild flowers well enough to pick them there seem to be few in- deed who love them so we'll that they lean leave them on their stalks. Yet those few are the real lovers of flowers; they do not demand the death of the objects of their love, but let the flowers Hive out their sunny lives. They seek to share their pleasure, not only with their fellows of to-day, but with millions yet unborn, whose only flowers must be the direct descendants of those which have been left upon their stalks, The love which prompts some people to gather armfuIs of wild flowers is often of selfish nature; at best it is thought less love, having no regard for the future Quite often 1t is sign of vul- Igarity, and indicates that the one who picks the flowers is possessed of the idea that if there is a beauty in single flower there must be great beauty in an armful. A single rose is beautiful ob- ject; bank of roses is hideous dis play which can appeal only to those who attempt to measure beauty by the standards of quantity and cost
 os course the destruction of our wild flowers is due to many causes, and some of these, the building of towns and the cultivation of farms, for example, are to be controlled. Others. like excessive numbering operations, may be controlled in time, but there are many causes which may be checked almost at once, and they must be if we would save from extermination some of our most highly valued plants. And this is the very time to lay plants for checking them,
 for some of the early spring flowers are amongst those most badly in need of protection. The Mayflower, or Trailing Arbutus. for example. lovable not only for it's beauty and fragrance. but for it's associations, has already disappeared from many localities in whief at one time 1t was common. and is rapidly
 growing scarce in many other places. This decrease is due largely to the gathering of enormous quantities for sale. The gathering os rare or un-
 common wild flowers should be stopped , by law. It has been stopped in some of the European countries, but some of them waited until it was almost too | late. Until such a law can be framed
 and put in force, property owners could
 do much good by posting notices forbid ding trespassing for the purpose of gathering rare wild flowers, at least And as Dr. Robert T. Jackson of
 Cambridge has pointed out in recent
 able address before the Massachu- setts Horticultural Society," public senti-
 ment could do much to stop the sale of
 such flowers. By refusing to purchase
 them the public would show a com mendable pride and quickly kill a traffic
 which theatens the very existence of
 some of our favorite plants. orshould
 we be unduly influenced by the fact
 that many of the people who sell the flowers, are poor. Neither poverty nor
 wealth has anything to do with the matter. When people undertake to
 make their living by wronging the
 country, whether it be by destroying the beauty of Niagara Falls, that they may take water for commercial purposes, or
 by exterminating the Trailing Arbutus
 that they may for q few years more get dOtAa1 Ol So bJ RNQuHAiS tiiS idNt sprays on the city streets, they should
 be suppressed.
 Another serious menace to the ex- listence oS the wild flowers is the ex- cessive picking by school children. Not for worlds would I suggest that child ren not be allowed to pick wild flow- CTS; it is in the hope that children may forever have the delight of picking them. that this article is written. But lthey should be taught that each wild flower is a living, precious thing, and that to destroy it thoughtlessly is a great mistake. The teachers throughout
 the country make themselves 8 power for good in this mater, as they do in so many others, by teaching the children moderation in the plucking of flowers.
 Instead of allowing them to go into the woods and bring back wilted sheaves of miscellaneous blossoms in their hot hands, why not send them to definite places for limited numbers of particu- liar flowers which are known to grow there, giving them simple instructions for keeping the flowers fresh until they lreturn? The flowers would then be in a good condition for study, and when they finally died, there would be feel ling that they had done some good. How tmany millions of flowers I wonder are levery year thrown away at the road
 side before the children reach home or school. or are cast on the ash heap as
 rubbish" with never word to suggest
 to the children that it would have been
 far better to have left them in the
 woods. The rarer the flower of course
 the more danger there is that it will
 disappear. The children may pluck