280 FIVE ACRES TOO MUCH. 



weeds, this was like none of them. They were most 

 deceptive things, and imitated the appearance of 

 plants wonderfully. One grew quite tall, and seem 

 ed to be on the point of flowering all the while, but 

 never did so. Another spread into quite a large tuft, 

 something between a daisy and a violet, and imposed 

 upon Patrick, even, so thoroughly that he never dug 

 it up in a single instance, notwithstanding his readi 

 ness to extirpate whatever was of doubtful authen 

 ticity. It spread rapidly, until it was quite a labor 

 to pull it up. Another of these troublesome mem 

 bers of the vegetable kingdom attained almost the 

 dimensions of a shrub, and had a thick, solid stalk, 

 and actually flowered ; but the blossoms were the 

 minutest things possible, and bore a ludicrous dis 

 proportion with the size of the bush ; while the snap 

 dragon obtained a hold in the beds which it is prob 

 able I never shall eradicate, by an error of apprecia 

 tion continued through a few months. In fact, the 

 weeds performed such strange antics, and behaved 

 in so unexpected a way, that the question arose in 

 my mind as to what was a weed. The author of 

 &quot; Ten Acres Enough&quot; says that it is a flower out of 

 place. The latter half of his explanation may be 

 well enough ; but as to its being a flower, most of 

 those that came up in my garden had no flowers 



