Name The State of Maine has a name which antedates the names of all other states except Virginia and Massachusetts. The manner in which the name was given has been a subject of much controversy. Many historians assert that the name first appeared in the charter granted in 1639 by Charles I to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and that it was bestowed in compliment to the queen of England, a daughter of Henry IV of France, who was connected by title or estate with the province of Meyne in France. Others have claimed that French colonists gave the name in memory of this same province. It is, now, however, a matter of authoritative record that the title "Provine of Maine" was first used in the grant made by the Council of New England to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason in 1622. Long before the appearance of the title in this grant, the word "main" in the sense of mainland had been in common use among the early explorers along the New England coast, and it is from this use that the name is derived. Residents of the island along the coast to this day speak of "the main". The designation province of Maine in 1622 could have no complimentary significance to the Queen of Charles I, because Henrietta Maria daughter of Henry IV of France did not become the wife of Charles until 1625. In 1652 Maine passed under the jurisdiction of Mass- achusetts. This relation existed only for a short time. In 1668 Massachusetts again proceeded to assume control of Maine which condition existed until the year 1820. In the meantime France had made attempts at colonization. In 1604 Sieur de Monts was given a grant by the French King, which included all of Maine. During the year the grant was made he made a voyage to inspect his domain, bring- ing with him Samuel de Champlain who died at Quebec in 1635. A monument to his memory has been erected adjoining the Cooksey Drive on the southern side of Mount Desert Island. The territory claimed by the French between Cape Breton Island and the mouth of Hadson River was Acadia. The Indians frequently r eferred to localities by a certain name preceded by a suffix which sounded like Kadie until finally the French called the Country in French La Kadie. A combination of the French La and Kadie, the place. This was contracted until the "I" was dropped and the two words became Acadie, or Acadia. When Massachusetts assumed control of Maine in 1652 the designation of Yorkshire County was applied to the territory as a whole. In 1760 Lincoln County was set off which included Hancock County. Hancock County was incorporated in 1789. From the Register of the State of Maine, I find that Hancock County was named from Governor Hancock of Massachu- setts. The State of Maine has a name which cantedates the name of all other States except Virginia and Massachusetts. There are conflicting claims as to the place which should have the honor of being the first to receive a claim of settlers, or even first to be explored and claimed by any of the Nations which afterwards made permanent settlements in Maine. In 1639 Sir Ferdinando Gorges procured a grant from Charles the First, King of England, making him proprietory Lord with full power of covering the territory between the Piscataquis and Kennebec Rivers a distance of sixty miles and extending in length one hundred twenty miles. This region was called the Province of Maine. Many historians assert that the name first appeared in this charter. It is now, however, a matter of authoritative record that the title "Province of Maine" was first used in the grant made by the Council of New England to Sir Fernando Gorges and John Mason in 1622. Two reasons have been given for the selection of this title. Some think it was named in honor of the Queen 01 France whose patromonial estate as Princess of France was the French Province of "Mayne" while others held to the opinion that it was called Maine because of the custom of calling it the main land. The Importance of Mount Desert Island as a Botanical Reservation. One of the commonest sights in the wilder districts of the northeastern United States is vast stretches of burned and waste lands, left in this sad condition after the cutting of timber and intentional or accidental burning of the refuse. Americans are altogether too familiar with, and hardened to, this condition fully to appreciate its effect upon the natural productions of the land. It so hazens that nearly, if not quite all, the native plants which originally inhabited the forested areas have a poculiarly modified root-atructure which renders it impossible for them to grow in any soil but the moist and sponge-like forest-humus. The first effect upon the native vegetation, then, of clearing and burn- ins the forested areas is the complete annihilation of countless individuals, representing hundreds of species of wild-flowers and ferns, which make much of the original charm of the primitive for- est. so complete has been the destruction of the huma-layer by the cutting ant burning of lands through many generations that it is well-nigh impossible to find, within fifty miles of our large towns, any areas of appreciable extent where the original wild- flowers of the forest can now be seen. This calamity, as it is viewed by lovers of nature, does not stop, however, with the more destruction of the native wild-flowers and terms; but, through the upsetting of nature's equilibring, a much 140 to serious situation is evolved. Very briefly, the process is this: The cutt. ins 03 the forests, with its consequent drying 2 out or burning away of the Anamus (leaf-mould), destroys, as already stated, the native forest vegetation; the destruction of the native plants has its immediate effect upon the feeding and breeding of the native insects, which nature has through countless ages made depend- ent upon them and which rarely, if ever, become troublesome to the farmer. The dest ruction of the food-Fla ts of the native insects, depleting or locally exterminating the native insect-species, again has it 3 effect upon the native birds, which through ages have de- pended upon the indigenous insects. The destruction of the native also vegetation, furthermora, has a direct effect upon the native birds and animals, in that natural breeding haunts and hunting grounds are destroyed. A further, and to many minds more practical, aspect of the question arises from the fact that although our indigenous American plants and animals are, as a class, fastidious in their selection little of habitats and show inclination to become naturalized in other countries to which they have been introduced, the vagrant or outlaw class of plant and animals, developed through thousands of years of contact with Euroyean and Asiatic civilization, shows no such sensitiveness to change of environment. In fact, the familiar ex- perience in our own country with such plants as the so-called Canada thistle (not a Canadian but a European vagrant plant) the Russian thistle, the prickly lettuce, whiteweed, dandelion, mustards, and hundreds of other weeds, all of Euroyean or Asiatic origin; and the too familiar invasions from Europe of rats, house-nice, English sparrows, starlings, brow-tail moths, EYPSY moths, and the numerous other animal vagrants which cause an endless expenditure of Amer ican money, show how quickly adaptable the old-world types are when transported to our soil. And just here is one of the most lament- 3 able features of our present method of carelessly destroying the forest hums, and rentering the cleared lands as attractive as it is possible to make them to the hardened races of old-world animals ani plants. It is unnecessary to expand this point. Every tray- elled American knows the wretched condition of New England and Canadian burned lands, with their crops of thistles (of European origin), milleins (European), docks (European) etc., mingled with the other fire-weeds. whether or not the gradual reforestation of our burned or de- forested areas will, in the course of hundreds or thousands of years, develop a sufficient huma-sarpet to support again the original forest flora and with it the forest fauna, it is of course impossi- ble to say. It is, however, unfortunately apparent that, should that time ever come in the future history of our continent, the original native plants and animals will have become so depleted, with them that the task of resettling possible future forests will be an im- poss ible one. Nearly everyone is agreed in these days that the only proper way to insure to future generations what we still, by travelling, are able to enjoy, is to set aside reservations where barriers shall be placed to keep off the selfish and thoughtless invasions of commerce. so far as the writer is aware, few if any reservations in the northeastem states have been made, which are not directly or indirectly under the guidance of landscape architects or foresters Though this is well for recreation grounds near cities and towns, so far has been the inevitable result to the cutting away of much, if not all, of the underbrush, (for reasons presumably known to those in charge, and the too frequent cutting out of trees as nature has placed them, for conventional or artificial landscape effects. Such a management 4 of a reservation, it seems to the writer, cannot maintain the nat- ural equilibrium of life in the forest; but the destruction of the natural shrubbery, the clearing away or burning of rubbish, and the opening to the sunshine of spots naturally shaded not only renders these areas uninviting or uninhabitable to many native species, but extends an unintentional invitation to the sin-loving vagrant ani- mals and plants, with their accompanying insect companions and ais- eases, to occury the lands. It has, therefore, long seemed to the writer, that the only way in which to conserve for the enjoyment and study of future generations any portions of our country which by good fortune are still somewhat in their natural condition, is the reservation of all such tracts as may properly be set aside, with the explicit stimulation that they be left essentially in the hands of Nature herself to care for. w nether this radical attitude can be maintained without some 8 your onise with the more general methods of procedure, it is in- possible to say; but compromise, if made, should be of a conserva- tive character. For instance, it, would be highly inexpedient, and quite apposed to the spirit of a natural reservation, to introduce into it plants or animals foreign to the general life area of the region. The danger in case of introductions from Europe or Asia should be at once apparent. But any area preserved for natural development might properly have introduced into it plants and ani- mals native to the surrounding country but, which, by accident of location or past extermination, are not now found there. But since such introduction into a seemingly wild and immolested tract would, unless carefully checked, unavoidably lead to confusion as to what is indigenous, what introduced, the most conscientions records 5 should be mintained of the introduction and progress of all for- eign species, and their extermination, whenever they show tenden- of es to monopolize the land, should be promptly effected. This brings ne to the crucial point: where is the best spot, if only a single spot can he thas preserved, for the perfection of this ideal ? A detailed knowledge of the geography and the flora, and to some extent, of the soil conditions, acquired through twenty- five years of active exploration in New England, the Maritime Provinces, Quebec, Newfoundland, and Labrador, naturally brings several regions to mind; but 88 a single area, within the possible reach of this hope, the Island of Mount Desert, with its adjacent islets and headlands, stands out as offering the greatest natural diversity. This cones obviously from the fact that Mount Desert is the highest land on the Atlantic Coast of North America south of the Gulf of St Lawrence, its hills reaching altitudes of almost montane character. The exposed headlands and bogs of the Mount Desert Region support between two and three hundred species of plants which are typical of the aretic, subardtic and Hudsonian regions of Amer- ica, and which, on the eastern coast of New England or the alrine sumits of the white Mountains reach their actual or approximate southern limits, - such plants, for instance, as the Black Crow- berry (Empetrur nigrum), the Baked-apple Berry Rubus Chanaemorras), the Creeping Juniner (Juniperns horizentalis), the Greenland Sand- wort (Arenaria groenlandica), the Rose-root ( Sedum roseum), and the Banksian Pine ( Pines Banksiana). The aretic character of this extensive flora is well displayed by the accompanying may, showing the distribution in North America of the Black Crowberry (Empetrum nigram. ) 6 But the Flora of the Mount Desert Region is not by any means entirely aretic or subarctic. There we find essentially all the compon plants of the Canadian Zone, and mingling with them in shel- tered nooks or meadows, or on warm slopes, many scores of plants which reach their extreme northern or northeastern limits on Mount Desert or the immediate coast,- such plants at Pitch Pine ( Pinus rigida), the Bear Oak (Quercus ilicifolia), the Sweet Pepperbush (Clethra alnifolia), the Swamp Loosestrife (Decodon verticellatus), the Meadow Beauty (Rhexia virginica), and the Maple-leaved Viburniums (Viburran acerifoliwa). The essentially southern range of this large growy of species is sufficiently indicated by the accompanying map, displaying the range of the Swamp Loosestrife (Decodon verti- cellatus). This ext raordinary accumulation within one small area of the typical plants of the arotic realm, of the Canadian %one, and in many cases of the southern coastal plain, cannot be duplicated at any point known to the writer. It results, doubtless, from the peculiar insular and mountai inous character of Mount Desert, and is a feature which duplicates itself in the case of nursery and garden plants. For all who are faniliar with the horticultural conditions of Mount Desert agree that at no point in eastern America is it possible to grow to such perfection innumerable herbaceous and shrub by plants, as in the salmbrious maritime and montane air of the island. In its rook and soil composition, Mount Desert offers a most attractive possibility. Much of the island consists of granitic rocks, with their consequent acid soils; but the soils derived from some of the metamorphic series, slates and shales, are, judging 7 from the native vegetation, of a basic or even 1dmy character; and many of the swamps are covered, not with the heath thickets of acid bogs, but with the characteristic grasses and sedges of sweet areas. several plants of the island, sometimes of rock hatitats, sometimes of swamps, suggest themselves at once as species, which, in their wide range, show a strong preference for sweet or liny habitats: the Shrubby Ginquefoil (Potentilla fruticosa), the Showy Lady's Slipper (Cyprisedium hirsutur) the Hemlock Parsley (Contoselimm chinense), etc. These features are sufficient, it would seem, to indicate the remarkable possibilities for the future, if a tract like Mount Desert can be preserved from the destruction of its natural charms by the judicious guarding of what it now possesses and the reintro- duction of what it has lost, or presunably lost, both plants and animals. The location of the island, as the playground -- habitual or occasional - of a vast and highly intelligent portion of our - lation, also renders it remarkably appropriate for such a natural reservation; and is such a reservation could be established with emphasis laid upon the redevelopment and maintenance of natural and indigenous conditions rather than the copied conventionalizations of old-world art, its influence upon the intelligent peoples of America would be far- reaching; for it is inconceivable that lovers of nature could enjoy such an ideal area, with its unmolested wild- florers, terns, birds, and manuals, and with the full beauty of nature everywhere displayed, without desiring, and providing, a similar blessing - according to the varied opportunities that offer - for transelves and their children in other parts of the nation. 8 It is therefore earnestly noyed that those who have it within their power will take the proper steps to insure the preservation and true conservation of the area so generously placed at their disposal. ( Signed) M. L. Fernald Gray Herbarium. Harvard University. December 5, 1913.