552 SHEAR AND STEVENS: EzRA MICHENER 
been mounted by Michener himself. The manuscript has been 
deposited in the library of the Department of Agriculture. 
Michener was also interested in genealogy and contributed a 
_ history of his family to the history of Chester County just men- 
tioned. There is in the possession of his grandson, Mr. Ezra J. 
Webster, of Toughkenamon, Pennsylvania, an elaborate genea- 
logical study of the Michener family, prepared by Dr. Michener. 
THE MANUAL OF WEEDS 
In 1872 Michener published a volume of about one hundred and 
fifty pages, entitled ‘‘A Manual of Weeds or the Weed Exter- 
minator,”’ designed, as he says in his introduction, to supplement 
Darlington’s (2) Agricultural Botany, and “to place in the hands 
of the young and intelligent culturist * * * a cheap, and reliable 
Hand book of Weeds.” This book does not seem to have 
received wide circulation. There is no copy in the Library of 
Congress or in the Library of the Department of Agriculture. : 
A copy in the Bayard Taylor Library at Kennett Square, Penn- 
sylvania, was, however, loaned to the writers by the librarian, 
Miss Alice W. Swayne. 
The manual lists one hundred weeds systematically arranged, 
many of them with observations as to habit of growth and sugges- 
tions for their control. There is also a glossary of botanic terms. 
In the introduction, which fills twenty pages, Michener exhibits 
considerable grasp of the fundamentals of plant physiology. He 
refers to the leaves as “‘the essential organs of digestion, assimila- 
tion, and respiration.’””’ That he understood many of the prin- 
ciples of plant distribution is evidenced by his warning against 
the practice of throwing weed seeds into water courses, and to 
the danger of carrying rhizomes from field to field on agricultural 
implements. He refers to the blackberry as a_bi-per-annual 
because, as he says, ‘‘the root is per-annual and the stem strictly 
bi-annual.”’. A characteristic remark is that ‘field fence corners 
cannot appropriately be used for flower gardens.’’ 
Some of his ideas as to the control of weeds must have seemed 
rather radical fifty years ago. For instance, he urges that the 
weed question is not a matter merely “of individual, of local, 
or of agricultural interest. It is more than all this. . . . It is 
