CHAPTER IX 



THE COLTSFOOT (Tussilago Farfara) 



My friend the farmer has just been giving me 

 some strong opinions about the coltsfoot. He is 

 bent on warfare. Armed with an instructive leaflet, 

 issued by the British Board of Agriculture and 

 Fisheries, supplying details as to the methods of 

 attack, he is determined to spud and to hoe, to 

 drain, and to fertilise the land, until not a single 

 coltsfoot dare show its face either as a flower or 

 leaf. How far he will succeed in his deadly pur- 

 pose I am not prepared to say, but I do know that 

 this is a most wily enemy against which he has 

 taken up the cudgels. Although I dare not hint 

 at such a thing to the farmer, personall}^, I must 

 confess that I am on the side of the enemy. I 

 cannot help but admire the unconscious, but 

 nevertheless artful, moves and tactics adopted by 

 the coltsfoot weed in the course of its evolution. 

 But then, you see, I am only a rambling naturalist 

 (an aimless but harmless person in the farmer's 

 opinion, I feel sure). Were I a farmer, I should 

 doubtless view the coltsfoot with different eyes. 

 In the pitched battle that is now to be fought 

 the coltsfoot has already made the first move. 

 Although it is only the first of February, the 

 yellow flower-heads are starred about the bare soil 



io6 



