200 PEPACTON 



it elsewhere, "forming a tangled mass of stems and 

 branches, studded with torquoise-blue blossoms, and 

 covering acres of ground." This is one of the 

 many weeds that Emerson binds into a bouquet in 

 his "Humble-Bee:" 



" Succory to match the sky, 

 Columbine with horn of honey, 

 Scented fern and agrimony, 

 Clover, catchfly, adder's-tongue, 

 And brier-roses, dwelt among." 



A less accurate poet than Emerson would probably 

 have let his reader infer that the bumblebee gath- 

 ered honey from all these plants, but Emerson is 

 careful to say only that she dwelt among them. 

 Succory is one of Virgil's weeds also, 



"And spreading succ'ry chokes the rising field." 



Is there not something in our soil and climate 

 exceptionally favorable to weeds, something harsh, 

 ungenial, sharp - toothed, that is akin to them 1 

 How woody and rank and fibrous many varieties 

 become, lasting the whole season, and standing up 

 stark and stiff through the deep winter snows, 

 desiccated, preserved by our dry air! Do nettles 

 and thistles bite so sharply in any other country? 

 Let the farmer tell you how they bite of a dry mid- 

 summer day when he encounters them in his wheat 

 or oat harvest. 



Yet it is a fact that all our more pernicious 

 weeds, like our vermin, are of Old World origin. 

 They hold up their heads and assert themselves 

 here, and take their fill of riot and license; they 



