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Letter to a Wildflower Digger [1938] If he became angry enough, Leopold could fire off an acerbic letter. This one, in defense of a yellow ladyslipper stolen from the University Arboretum, he sent to the unknown thief through pages of the local newspaper, the Wisconsin State Journal. In it he pays incidental homage to John Muir. This letter is addressed, through the columns of the State Journal, to that unknown person who last week dug up the only remaining yellow ladyslipper in the Wingra woods. While your name is unknown, your action sufficiently portrays the low estate of either your character or your education. On the chance that the latter rather than the former is at fault, I address to you this letter. I address it also to all whose gardens at this season suddenly blossom forth with new wildflowers lifted from other people's woods. When John Muir came to the Madison region two generations ago, the woods and marshes were studded with millions of ladyslippers of a score of species. Today, what with drainage, fire, cow, plow, and wildflower diggers -like yourself-a dozen of these species are extinct, and the remainder are so rare that the average citizen has never seen one. Now John Muir got something pleasant and valuable from his wildflowers . He became a great man, and it seems likely that his wildflowers had something to do with it. It is reasonable to suppose that the present generation might get something pleasant and valuable from them, too-if there were any. But no one, even yourself, is going to get anything valuable from this ladyslipper languishing in your backyard. The University of Wisconsin has got the notion, perhaps a foolish one, that the privilege of seeing a ladyslipper woods has got something to do with education. For this reason it is acquiring an arboretum. It wants to take its botany students out there and show them what Wisconsin looked like in its youth-in John Muir's youth. It hopes that this will make them dissatisfied with what Wisconsin looks like now. But now, thanks to you, the Wingra 247 248 Letter to a Wildflower Digger woods is one step nearer looking like all the rest of the state. Perhaps, after all, our students would learn a lot if we took them out there and said: "Here is where we used to have a ladyslipper." Then, if you will consent to the invasion of your privacy, we would like to take them to your backyard and show them where you have planted it, and how it is thriving in its new home. In respect of thriving, here are some things you may not know: Only one man has ever succeeded in germinating the seeds of this species in artificial surroundings. It takes a high-powered chemist to reproduce the conditions necessary for its germination. Wild woods sometimes allow of reproduction, but backyards never. After the seedling has been born, it takes four years to reach the age of flowering. Do you think your ladyslipper will reproduce its kind in your backyard? One of our ambitions for the arboretum is to apply the newly discovered chemistry for germinating the species, i.e., to start a "Iadyslipper nursery" out of which the Wingra woods, and all other Wisconsin woods not yet graved to death, may be abundantly restocked. To this end we have hired the only living man who knows how to do it, and he is ready to make the attempt. But now you have taken his source of seed. We can find other plants, to be sure, but it will not be long, what with the thousands of other wildflower diggers like yourself, before the goose with golden eggs is dead. We had better hurry. I invite your attention to the fact that this ladyslipper is not the only public property which you might lift for the embellishment of your home. There are numerous paintings in the Memorial Union which you could cut out of their frames while nobody is looking. They are, I admit, less beautiful than your flower, but their loss could be more easily replaced. In the historical museum are any number of things as irreplaceable as your flower-why not add some of them to your collection? I anticipate your reply and tell you why not: because you, and also your friends and neighbors, would recognize your act as vandalism. You do not recognize your theft of the ladyslipper as vandalism...

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