Arable Land 



These weeds and a few other plants were colonising the 

 ground and making it fit for better kinds of vegetation. 

 It would become, if left alone, a bushy meadow or 

 heather moor. 



Weeds are remarkable for combining in a most un- 

 usual way the very best characteristics of Conservativism 

 and of advanced Radicalism. They are stubborn and 

 tenacious, holding on obstinately to what is good, but 

 they are always ready for new adventures and quite 

 adaptable to new conditions. 



Thus, for instance, when a foreign weed, Vicia orobus, 

 estabHshed itself in Germany, it was found that it 

 flowered twice in spring and in autumn. The spring form 

 is taller than the surrounding herbage, and is very shaggy 

 or hairy, apparently because it requires protection against 

 the inclemency of the weather. But the late flowering 

 autumn plants have no hairs, for they are not taller than 

 their neighbours, and require no such help.^ It is of 

 course quite usual to find our weeds flowering at 

 different seasons. But they are specially ingenious in 

 the exact way in which they time their appearances, so 

 as to coincide with our ordinary agricultural crops. 



Some of the smaller corn weeds grow up with the 

 corn, but take care to shed their seed before it is ripe 

 and ready for harvest. Those which are about as tall as 

 the corn itself seem to ripen with it, so that their seeds 

 accompany the grain and are thrashed out and sown 

 again with it. Others again are taller than the oat 

 stalks, and their fruits and seeds are distributed before 

 harvest. Then again there are others which come up 

 in the bare stubble fields, and so can shed their fruit 

 without any interference. 



There is just the same ingenuity in the case of those 

 which are found in turnip or potato fields. Some are 

 very cjuick and grow ahead of the turnips ; others may 



256 



