THE WEEDS OF THE EARTH 



paratively so, as a burdock or a dandelion: 

 especially such a plant as is positively nox- 

 ious or injurious to crops; also any herbaceous 

 plant out of place, as a poppy in a wheat field 

 or a stalk of wheat in a flower garden." 



"Any one of those herbaceous plants which 

 are useless and without special beauty, or es- 

 pecially which are positively troublesome. The 

 application of this general term is somewhat 

 relative. Handsome but pernicious plants, as 

 the ox-eye daisy, the corn-flower, and the 

 purple cow- wheat of Europe, are weeds to the 

 agriculturist, flowers to the esthetic. So also 

 plants that are cultivated for use or beauty, as 

 grasses, hemp, carrot, parsnip, morning-glory, 

 become weeds when they spring up where 

 they are not wanted. The exotics of cold 

 countries are sometimes weeds in the tropics." 



"The general name of any plant that is use- 

 less or troublesome. The word, therefore, has 

 no definite application to any particular plant 

 or species of plants, but is applied generally to 

 such plants as grow where they are not wanted 

 and are either of no use to man or injurious 

 to crops." 



As man through the centuries has drawn 



107 



