A BUNCH OF HERB 195 



The old fanners say thai wood-ashea will bring 

 in the white clover, and i! will; the germs are in 

 the soil wrapped in a profound slumber, bul this 

 stimulus tickles them until they awake. Stramo- 

 nium has been known to start up on ili«- Bite of .in 

 old farm building, when it had nol been seen in 

 that locality for thirty years. 1 have been told 

 that a farmer, somewhere in New England, in d 

 ging a well came at a great depth upon sand like 

 that of the seashore; it was thrown out, and in due 

 time there sprang from it a marine plant. I have 

 never seen earth taken from so great a depth that 

 it would not before the end of the season 1"' clothed 

 with a crop of weeds. Weeds are so full of expe- 

 dients, and the one engrossing purpose with them 

 is to multiply. The wild onion multiplies at both 

 ends, — at the top by seed, and at the bottom by 

 offshoots. Toad-flax travels under ground and ah 

 ground. Never allow a seed to ripen and yel it 

 will cover your field. Cut off the head of the wild 

 carrot, and in a week or two there are five heads in 

 room of this one; cut oil' these and by fall then- are 

 ten looking defiance at you from the Bame root. 

 Plant corn in August, and it will go forward with 

 its preparations asif it had the whole season bef< 

 it. Not so with the weeds; thev have learned 

 better. If amaranth, or abutilon, or burdock 

 a late start, it makes greal haste to develop its seed; 

 it foregoes its tall stalk and wide flaunting growth, 

 and turns all its energies into keeping up the suc- 

 cession of the speci I rtain fields under the 



