VI.] CULTIVATION. 



insuperable obstacle to the cultivation, let us now 

 suppose the corn plants to be three inches high. 

 Long before this, iveedsw'iW begin to appear ; for 

 they were in the ground long before the corn, and 

 they claim their right of primogeniture, and act 

 upon that right. They will not rise to the same 

 height with the corn plants ; but, their inferiority in 

 point of height and ])ulk will be amply made up 

 for in numbers ; and the poor corn plant, if left 

 to itself, will soon be like Gulliver, when bound 

 down by the Lilliputians. These ^' patriots of 

 the soil,'' as poor Perry used to call the whig 

 nobility, put forward the same claim in wheat and 

 barley and oat fields j but these have numbers 

 too ; so that the contest is more equal ; yet, even 

 here, the ^^ patriots of the soil" never struggle 

 wholly in vain ; and, sometimes, they nearly, if 

 not quite, overcome the upstart " Lower Orders.'* 



9L In the case of corn, these patriots must, 

 however, be put down, and that, too, from their 

 first appearance; or, at least, as soon as the corn 

 plants are three inches high ; for, the roots of 

 the weeds, small as they may be, do mischief to 

 the corn the moment the weeds show their heads, 

 and even before ; seeing that the root goes down 

 before the head rises above ground. Besides this, 

 the mere act of moving the earth just round the 

 young plant does a great deal of good. 



92. Therefore, as soon as the plants are of the 



