218 A BUNCH OF HERBS. 



will wait long before they draw near it. Or knot 

 grass that carpets every old door-yard, and fringes 

 every walk and softens every path that knows the 

 feet of children, or that leads to the spring, or to 

 the garden, or to the barn, how kindly one comes to 

 look upon it. Examine it with a pocket glass and 

 see how wonderfully beautiful and exquisite are its 

 tiny blossoms. It loves the human foot, and when 

 the path or the place is long disused other plants 

 usurp the ground. 



The gardener and the farmer are ostensibly the 

 greatest enemies of the weeds, but they are in reality 

 their best friends. Weeds, like rats and mice, in 

 creaseand spread enormously in a cultivated country. 

 They have better food, more sunshine, and more aids 

 in getting themselves disseminated. They are sent 

 from one end of the land to the other in seed grain 

 of various kinds, and they take their share, and 

 more too, if they can get it, of the phosphates and 

 stable manures. How sure, also, they are to survive 

 any war of extermination that is waged against them. 

 In yonder field is ten thousand and one Canada 

 thistles. The farmer goes resolutely to work and 

 destroys ten thousand and thinks the work is finished, 

 but he has done nothing till he has destroyed the ten 

 thousand and one. This one will keep up the stock 

 and again cover his fields with thistles. 



Weeds are Nature's makeshift. She rejoices in the 

 grass and the grain, but when these fail to cover hei 

 nakedness, she resorts to weeds. It is in her plan or 



