220 A BUNCH OF HERBS. 



head of the wild carrot, and in a week or two there 

 are five heads in room of this one ; cut off these and 

 by fall there are ten looking defiance at you from the 

 Bame root. Plant corn in August, and it will go for- 

 ward with its preparations as if it had the whole 

 season before it. Not so with the weeds ; they have 

 learned better. If amaranth, or abutilon, or bur- 

 dock, gets a late start it makes great haste to develop 

 its seed ; it foregoes its tall stalk and wide flaunting 

 growth, and turns all its energies into keeping up the 

 succession of the species. Certain fields under the 

 plow are always infested with " blind nettles " ( Gali* 

 opsis), others with wild buckwheat, black-bindweed, 

 or cockle. The seed lies dormant under the sward, 

 the warmth and the moisture affect it not until other 

 conditions are fulfilled. 



The way in which one plant thus keeps another 

 down is a great mystery. Germs lie there in the 

 soil and resist the stimulating effect of the sun and 

 the rains for years, and show no sign. Presently 

 something whispers to them, "Arise, your chance 

 has come ; the coast is clear ; "' and they are up and 

 doing in a twinkling. 



Weeds are great travelers; they are, indeed, the 

 tramps of the vegetable world. They are going east, 

 west, north, south ; they walk ; they fly ; they swim ; 

 they steal a ride ; they travel by rail, by flood, by 

 wind ; they go under ground, and they go above, 

 Across lots, and by the highway. But, like other 

 tramps, they find it safest by the highway ; in the 



