VIII.] LESSON OF THE WEEDS. 201 



I do not doubt that the ultimate result of this bloodless 

 warfare will be of inestimable value to the northwest. 

 Weeds have always been the best friend of the farmer. 

 They taught him how to till the soil, and they never 

 allow him to forget the lesson. Vergil was well aware 

 of it: 



" The father of humankind himself ordains 



The husbandman should tread no path of flowers, 

 But waken the sleeping earth with sleepless pains. 

 So pricketh he these indolent hearts of ours." 



The lesson is painful at the onset, but for that rea- 

 son it is remembered the longer. Over a half century 

 ago, certain agitators in New York state foresaw untold 

 evil from the incursions of the Canada thistle, and one 

 of them even predicted that it would "establish its fatal 

 empire over the whole of North America," resulting, 

 perhaps, in the depopulation of the country. But good 

 farming and climatic limitations quietly stopped its 

 progress, and it is no longer a terror to the rural com- 

 munities. So all things find their level, not by legisla- 

 tion but by education. Solomon "went by the field of 

 the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of 

 understanding ; and lo, it was all grown over with 

 thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and 

 the stone wall thereof was broken down." It is doubt- 

 less the privilege of the government to instruct farmers 

 how to improve their farming, but weeds are beyond 

 the reach of the sheriff. Laws cannot correct a va- 

 cancy in nature. 



