Certain plants follow man, dispute possession of his garden with 

 him, and spri?ig up wherever he makes a path or road. Many come 

 from foreign countries. No legislation, fio quarantine, can keep 

 them out. Their seeds are sly, furtiished with all sorts of devices 

 for catching on to the dress of man, the hide or hair of animals, 

 the feathers of birds, and even the bodies of insects. Great steam- 

 ships and railways give them free passage. They are "vegetable 

 tramps." Says fohn Burroughs : " They are going east, west, 

 north, south. They walk, they fly, they swim; they steal a ride, they 

 travel by rail, by flood, by wind ; they go imderground and they go 

 above, across lots, atid by the highway." 



Not all "cveeds are unsightly, nor have they all dull blossoms. Most 

 of them, even the pretty ones, make themselves unwelcome by becom- 

 ing too common. Webster says a weed is " any plajtt growing in 

 cultivated ground to the injury of the crop or desired vegetation, or 

 to the disfiguronent of the place ; an unsightly, useless, or injurious 

 plant." 



Such as they are, we are bound to give them space in our vege- 

 table economy. The " wheat and tares," we are told, " the good a7td 

 the bad, will grow together till the efid of the world." 



