32 THE GARDENERS NATURAL ENEMIES [CH. 



could have a hinge in his back. One sometimes feels 

 the need of two or three such devices where weeds 

 have to be pulled up, gooseberry caterpillars to be 

 picked one by one, slugs and wireworms gathered and 

 destroyed, and all the thousand and one other enemies, 

 visible and invisible, met and vanquished. 



Luckily, one of the attributes of a true gardener 

 is that his powers of detection become abnormally 

 heightened and his eye trained by habit to observe 

 beauties, and dangers and defects, which to the unpractised 

 eye do not exist. 



Weeds are the most obvious of enemies ; they 

 probably grew in the Garden of Eden, at all events they 

 have flourished ever since. It has been well said of them 

 by Mr Wright that " it is not only the mineral support 

 of crops, or what may be termed their solid food, that 

 weeds steal ; they devour the liquids also, the rains and all 

 the rich nourishment for plants which the drops collect 

 in their passage through the air. Depriving the earth of 

 its life-giving moisture and the food it contains is often 

 a very serious matter, and, in dry, poor soils, positively 

 ruinous." 



Some soft annuals like chickweed and groundsel 

 only require the hoe, and if it be used before seeding 

 time it is a simple remedy. The very worst of our 

 weeds is couch grass ; another is the white Convolvulus, 

 one of the loveliest of native flowers, but with a per- 

 sistently running root, every inch of which quickly forms 



