A Handful of Weeds 349 



places west of the Mississippi where wild-carrot, de- 

 spised intruder on Eastern lawns, is cosseted and 

 extolled under the appropriate alias of " lace- 

 flower." It is a pity that we, in the Eastern 

 States, have become blind to the beauty of its 

 feathery leaves and its wheels of delicate bloom, 

 which in later August fill every field and roadside 

 with unloved loveliness. 



Indeed, all weeds are much in evidence in late 

 summer and autumn. The flowers of most sorts 

 are inconspicuous, but the seeds which follow com- 

 pel attention by sheer force of numbers and ubiq- 

 uity. They are here to-day to fight the farmers 

 because they practised, ages ago, what the farmers 

 have learned only within much more recent times. 



Nature has taken extraordinary care that the 

 seeds do not drop at the roots of the parent-plant 

 into an exhausted soil. The weeds sow themselves 

 broadcast each autumn. Some are provided with 

 feathery plumes, and thus made so buoyant that 

 the lightest breeze will bear them fast and far. 

 Every autumn gust is freighted with a mixed com- 

 pany of these little flyaways. Thistle, sow-thistle, 

 dandelion, milkweed, and golden-rod seeds all fly 

 on feathery wings, and thus the respective families 

 are kept up, and are spread over the country. 



