LECTURE V 



ENEMIES OF CROPS AND TREES 



EVERY occupation in life has its impediments. 

 Obstacles of various kinds obstruct free progress. 

 What may be termed the law of opposition per- 

 vades all nature, and its influence extends every- 

 where. It is certainly felt in gardens and fields. 

 Weeds fight with crops for the mastery, in appro- 

 priating the virtues of the soil, while insects above 

 ground and grubs within it, are ever in combat with 

 the cultivator. 



Weeds as Enemies. While men wait weeds 

 grow, arid these are inveterate enemies of crops. To 

 invest labour in the land by digging or trenching, and 

 money or money's worth in manuring, and then to let 

 weeds take and retain possession when they might be 

 prevented is deplorable. 



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 col- 

 lect in their passage through the air. Depriving the 

 earth of its life-giving moisture and the food it con- 

 tains is often a very serious matter, and in dry poor 

 soils positively ruinous, 



