(To TER EDITOR 07 TIM • "SPECTATOR.'
SIR,—In your apt and sympathetic footnote to a letter on "Flower Sanctuaries," written from Birkenhead, which appeared in last week's Spectator, you say that we are justified in trying to restore to their old homes the flora of English countrysides; but surely it were far better to keep than to restore—a process difficult and, I venture to say, impossible. I had a rather lively correspondence in the columns of the Timei last summer with a gentleman who advocated rooting up and removing ferns from their native heaths and woods and planting them in the backyards of dwellings in Oxford and Birmingham by tramps and trippers. I think a word of warning is again necessary to those kind ladies who circulate printed letters to London children urging them to " collect " and take home with them such trophies from the country. But the upshot of my correspondence last year was a practical one ; that as there is a Wild Birds' Protection Act in force so there are also bye-laws and clubs and societies (as, e.g., the Selborne Society) for the protection of wild plants, and no county ought to be without them. I should be grateful to any of your readers if they would help to start a society of the kind in North and South Oxon, and I venture to refer them to my old friend Mr. Claridge Druce, of Oxford, who would, I am sure, be willing to take the matter in hand.—Allow me to subscribe
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