PEPACTON 



top of the ground in the burning summer sun. Our 

 native docks are mostly found in swamps, or near 

 them, and are harmless. 



Purslane commonly called " pusley," and 

 which has given rise to the saying, "as mean as 

 pusley " of course is not American. A good 

 sample of our native purslane is the claytonia, or 

 spring beauty, a shy, delicate plant that opens its 

 rose-colored flowers in the moist, sunny places in 

 the woods or along their borders so early in the 

 season. 



There are few more obnoxious weeds in cultivated 

 ground than sheep-sorrel, also an Old World plant; 

 while our native wood-sorrel, with its white, deli- 

 cately veined flowers, or the variety with yellow 

 flowers, is quite harmless. The same is true of the 

 mallow, the vetch, the tare, and other plants. We 

 have no native plant so indestructible as garden 

 orpine, or live-forever, which our grandmothers 

 nursed, and for which they are cursed by many a 

 farmer. The fat, tender, succulent dooryard strip- 

 ling turned out to be a monster that would devour 

 the earth. I have seen acres of meadow land de- 

 stroyed by it. The way to drown an amphibious 

 animal is never to allow it to come to the surface 

 to breathe, and this is the way to kill live-forever. 

 It lives by its stalk and leaf, more than by its root, 

 and, if cropped or bruised as soon as it comes to 

 the surface, it will in time perish. It laughs the 

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