• GRASSES OF MAINE. 17 



' marked "pure herds-grass," were weed seeds enough to give 

 twenty-four to every square foot of an acre. In another 

 establishment, where they have reached the climax of this 

 kind of cheating, quartz rock is ground fine and mixed with 

 clover seed. Few have any idea of on Avhat an extensive 

 scale the adulterating or "doctoring" seed, as they call it, is 

 prosecuted. One establishment in London uses annually 

 20,000 bushels of old turnip seed for doctoinng. 



Very many of the worst weeds are introduced as flower 

 seed. The Cone-Flower or Ohio Daisy now finds a place in 

 many a florist's catalogue, its villainous character cloiiked in 

 the unpronounceable name of Rudbechia liirta. Tlmt worst 

 of pests, the Canada Thistle (^Cirsium arvense)yh a "run- 

 away," a fugitive from the flower garden. In a sample of 

 linseed cake from Russia, were found twenty-nine different 

 , kinds of very pernicious weed-seeds. Such a magnitude has 

 the "doctoring" of grass seed assumed, by which new recruits 

 are ever being added to the vast army of weeds which the 

 farmer must fight, like Harry-of-the-Wind in Scott's novels, 

 "by his own hand," that the}' should demand the establish- 

 ment of seed-control stations, as in Germany. 



To be poisonous is an extra vice of many weeds. Poison 

 Ivy {Rhus toxicodendroii) ^ which causes a species of erysip- 

 elas. Poison Hemlock {Conium Maculatum), the "death- 

 drink" in ancient Greece. White Snake-root, {Euimtorium 

 ageratoides) , regarded as the cause of milk-sickness. Mer-, 

 cury {Acalypha Virginia), thought to be the cause of the 

 slabbering of horses. Horsetail {Equiestum arvense) , caus- 

 ing the staggers, and Sheep Laurel (Bahnia angustifolia) , 

 so fatal to lambs and calves. The prolificacy of weeds, these 

 interlopers and freebooters of the grass field, is astonishing ; 

 the red poppy will ripen 50,000 seeds. 



Botanical Names. 



Plants like the grasses, where the resemblance is very close, 

 and where a great many kinds are known by the same name, 



