CHAPTER XII 

 WEEDS AND COMPOST 



WHAT is a weed? It is a plant out of place. 

 Many of our most choice flowers are weeds in other 

 countries. Geraniums and cosmos and Calla 

 Lilies are weeds in Mexico. We generally think 

 of a weed as some plant which comes up very fast 

 and very often and there are lots and lots of them, 

 yet some of our flowers are weeds because they in- 

 sist on crowding other flowers out and coming up 

 where we do not want them so a plant in the wrong 

 place is really a weed. 



I presume our worst weed the country over is 

 grass. There is one kind that is particularly bad 

 because it needs only the tiniest piece of root or stem 

 to start a new plant. Then there is "sorrel" or 

 "sour grass" which sends out long stems just un- 

 der ground, making new plants every few inches. 

 Another bad weed is "pusley" or "purslane"; it has 

 a thick stem and fat leaves ; sits close to the ground 

 and will spread out in a circle as large as a dinner 

 plate. "Daisies" are bad weeds in some parts of the 



94 



