* * * * When country people dig up plants
and transfer them to their own gardens they may prove preservers rather than destroyers. The garden becomes a sanctuary for the plant as it is a sanctuary for the bird. To make personal confession, the yellow and the purple loosestrife, the meadow-sweet and marsh marigold, the bistort and dusky geranium, flourish in my garden more than most of them flourish elsewhere, but they also overflow its boundaries ; they escape, and if some were transplanted from wilder places no subtraction is made from the species. I know a wild patch at the edge of a Berk- shire garden where all the local orchises flourish ; and all have been dug up in the neighbourhood. I would go so far as to rejoice when country people keep a corner for wild plants ; but when it is a question of real rarities the only policy is decent secrecy. It would be as foolish to announce the whereabouts of a clump of Cheddar Pink as to describe the topography of a dell where the Dartford warbler builds.
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