Connecticut western news., 1921-04-21
PROTECTION ASKED FOR
 STATES WILD FLOWERS
Garden Club of America Fears They Will Be Ex-
 terminated

turn of spring is associated with the towering of the Trailing Arbutus. Since the Pilgrims first saw this lovely plant exactly three hundred springs ago, at Plymouth, and named it the Mayfower, its color and fra grance have brought delight to mil lions of our people.
 Perhaps no other plant, by reason l of the destruction which its beauty has brought upon it, has so forcibly drawn the attention of thoughtful , persons to the need for conservation required by many of our wild flow CTS as has the Arbutus. In the vicin- ity of our larger cities, it is now to be found only in rare and hidden To- calities. Around New York, and Boston, and Washington, indeed, it IS scarcely to be found at all. Around our health resorts, through intensive picking for sale to invalids and other guests, great beds of Arbutus that formerly fourished in the surround ing woods have been completely wiped out.
 Connecticut is to be congratulated on having taken the lead in the pro- tection of the Arbutus by law. Gen eral Statute 6276 provides a fine for any one who shall destroy, pull up or sell or offer for sale any Trailing Arbutus taken from land of another person. But in spite of the law, the Arbutus is markedly on the decline even in Connecticut, especially near the cities.
 The growth of the plant is very precarious. It spreads slowly, the prostrate leafy stems trailing over ground and taking root; and it seems not to spread by seed over any con-. siderable distances. It is exacting in its soil relations, requiring an acid soil and the presence of certain soil fungi upon which its roots are de- pendent for their proper develop ment. Failure to take account of these peculiar relations is doubtless responsible for the lack of success which almost invariably attends attempts to cultivate or even to transplant the Arbutus.
 The flowers grow. so near the ground, that 1t is difficult to pick them without injury to the roots or to the trailing stems. Hence of all our wild-fiowers, it should be picked with the greatest moderation. Tea chers, in every city and rural school, should explain to their children the nature of this plant and discourage those sad little punches, with leaves pulled off and flower faces pressed close together, brought day after day with the best intentions to the school desk. Pleasure parties should treat the patches of Arbutus which they may meet with on their excur- sions and picnics with the utmost consideration. Above all, no one should ever buy the punches offered for sale on our city streets. Our great American conservationist, Theodore Roosevelt exclaimed: "Do all you can to preserve the Mayfower! I dislike to see people carrying around punches of these beautiful flowers pulled up by the roots." It is a privilege in spring to visit the haunts of the Arbutus, and no one should pull it up. The habit of doing so may be strong; if we cannot control it, our children must be taught to show us the way, even if it take a generation for the lesson to be fully learned.
 Peeping hopefully from beneath the dreary leaf-carpet of last year, the delicate waxy blooms of the Trailing Arbutus are tinted with the first pink blush of spring and fill the air with their unique fragrance; who that finds them does not want to pick, to carry home, to possess for his very own? Yet how short-lived is the joy of physical possession! 1! How out of proportion is the harm done as we'll by our example as by our act itself! Who can forget the feeling of anticipation with which we return to our cherished Ar butus bed every spring, and perhaps the keen sense of disappointment when we sometimes have found our | supposedly secret retreat ravished of 1 it's charms by vandal hands? If fu- ture generations are to enjoy the Arbutus, it is our duty, unselfishly, not merely to tell others not-to pick it, but to practice that preachment I ourselves. We exterminate the flowers only because we love them. The cry of the Arbutus must remain : Preserve us from our Friendsw