THE NEW EARTH 



other seeds, and each of these three hundred, 

 three hundred more apiece, the increase being 

 at a rate too enormous for comprehension. A 

 single seed may thus in three generations — 

 probably, under favoring conditions, less than a 

 year to a generation — become the parent of 

 twenty-seven million offspring. 



And every one of these millions is of the 

 robber brood, each one taking for his own 

 worthless purposes that which should go to 

 the enrichment of the earth. Some of the 

 weeds are not only powerful in their attacks 

 upon the storehouse of the soil by reason of 

 the new plants constantly developing from the 

 seeds, but they add to their robber equipment 

 an underground system of attack. They send 

 out stolons or rootlets, so to call them, which 

 at intervals send roots downward and new 

 plants upward, doing all far out of the sight of 

 man. Others persistently send out runners 

 above ground, which also at frequent intervals 

 take root and form thrifty new plants. A^arious 

 devices for the preservation and extension of 

 their sway are put to use. Mechanical contri- 

 vances are common by which, when the time 

 has come for the liberation of the ripe seed, it 



112 



