26 FAMILIAR WILD FLO WEBS. 



growth of these usurpers, but his apathy inflicts no less 

 serious damage on his luckless neighbours. All such plants 

 should be carefully cut down and removed before the seeds 

 develop. In old times many severe laws were passed 

 requiring all such things to be rigorously extirpated, and 

 it would surely even now be no less an advantage to more 

 painstaking and careful landholders, if some similar check 

 were in force. There is in some country districts an old 

 proverb, often quoted, "One year's seeding makes seven 

 years of weeding;" and we recall to mind at this present 

 time as we write, a small plot of ground near to us, that in 

 the hands of a careless farmer has been allowed to produce 

 a vast crop of hurtful plants that will make their influence 

 felt all round the district for years to come. Thorns and 

 thistles are by many good people regarded as a necessary 

 curse, associated with the first fall from primeval innocence, 

 but there is certainly no warrant for any listless folding 

 of the hands. Undoubtedly they contribute their share 

 to the necessity for labour, but good wholesome work is 

 very far frorn being a curse. All possibility of evil lies 

 in wait for the idle ; a boundless possibility of blessing 

 awaits those who follow the Divine law, and become in 

 some humble but true sort fellow-workers of Those of 

 whom it is written, " My Father worketh hitherto, and 

 I work." 



Amongst the numerous kinds of thistles that may 

 readily be met with, the spear plume thistle and the 

 present species are perhaps the finest, regarding them 

 simply as ornamental plants. In each species the general 

 growth is bold and vigorous, the flower-heads large 

 and rich in colour, and when seen in a situation where 

 the circumstances of growth are propitious to tbem, they 



