A BUNCH OF HERBS 



plow the hoe, the cultivator to scorn, but grazing 

 herds will eventually scotch it. Our two species of 

 native orpine, Sedum ternatum and S. telephioides, 

 ire never troublesome as weeds. 



The European weeds are sophisticated, domesti- 

 cated, civilized ; they have been to school to man 

 for many hundred years, and they have learned to 

 thrive upon him : their struggle for existence has 

 been sharp and protracted ; it has made them hardy 

 and prolific ; they will thrive in a lean soil, or they 

 will wax strong in a rich one; in all cases they fol- 

 low man and profit by him. Our native weeds, on 

 the other hand, are furtive and retiring; they flee 

 before the plow and the scythe, and hide in corners 

 and remote waste places. Will they, too, in time, 

 change their habits in this respect ? 



" Idle weeds are fast in growth," says Shake- 

 speare, but that depends upon whether the com- 

 petition is sharp and close. If the weed finds itself 

 distanced, or pitted against great odds, it grows 

 more slowly and is of diminished stature, but let it 

 once get the upper hand, and what strides it makes! 

 Red-root will grow four or five feet high if it has 

 a chance, or it will content itself with a few inches 

 and mature its seed almost upon the ground. 



Many of our worst weeds are plants that have 



escaped from cultivation, as the wild radish, which 



is troublesome in parts of New England; the wild 



carrot, which infests the fields in eastern New York; 



227 



