Care of Fruit Trees. 613 



The presence of weeds is only one of the many illustrations of the 

 effects of the desperate struo^gle for life which is forced upon every 

 plant and animal when left to shift for itself. Every plant pro- 

 duces more seeds than it can ever expect to rear into plants. There 

 is room for more only as other plants die. So when the farmer 

 breaks up the earth he kills the plants which inhabited the land and 

 thereby opens opportunities for the myriad host which stands wait- 

 ing over the border for a chance to spread itself. These plants are 

 bound to make the attempt to fill the breach. The farmer may 

 keep them out either by killing them or preventing their establish- 

 ment by means of tillage, or by covering the ground with other 

 plants so that the weeds can find no chance to live. Now, these two 

 things — tillage and cropping — comprise the whole science and 

 practice of agriculture ; and it follows that better farming is the 

 only method of permanently keeping down the weeds. This fact is 

 admirably illustrated by the common observation that those persons 

 who are called " good farmers" complain least of weeds. It is often 

 asked that the government lend its aid in directly fighting serious 

 invasions of weeds ; but the government can not take men's farms 

 in charge and do their farming for them, and unless it does this it 

 can only temporize with the invader. 



Nature is a kindly and solicitous mother. She knows that bare 

 land becomes unproductive land. Its elements must be unlocked 

 and worked over and digested by the roots of plants. The surface 

 must be covered to catch the rains and to hold the snows, to retain 

 the moisture and to prevent the baking and cementing of the soil. 

 The plant tissues add fibre and richness to the land and make it 

 amenable to all the revivifying influences of sun and rain and air 

 and warmth. The plant is co- partner with the w^eather in the build- 

 ing of the primal soils. The lichen spreads its thin substance over 

 the rock, sending its fi1)res into the crevices and filling the chinks, 

 as they enlarge, with the decay of its own structure ; and finally the 

 rock is fit for the moss or fern or creeping vine, each newcomer 

 leaving its impress by which some later newcomer may profit. 

 Finally the rock is disintegrated and comminuted, and is ready to 

 be still further elaborated by corn and ragweed. So nature intends 

 to leave no vacant or bare surfaces. She providently covers the 

 railway embankment with quack grass or willows, and she scatters 

 daisies in the old meadows where the land has grown sick and tired 

 of grass. So, if I pull up a weed, I must quickly fill the hole with 



