UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



plough, would they not succeed just as well nearer 

 the surface, or with only a tap-root like most other 

 plants? This habit is doubtless much older than the 

 plough, and it is very doubtful if the explanation 

 can be found in the theory of natural selection. 

 Quack-grass is baffling for the same reason; there is 

 a family root that travels horizontally under the soil 

 and sends up shoots all along its course; dig out a 

 yard of it, and yet if you have left an inch, the plant 

 renews itself. The chickweed is a wonderfully en- 

 terprising plant. It is one of the very first to start 

 in business in the spring; it begins to bloom in March 

 or April; it matures its seeds rapidly, and keeps on 

 blooming and seeding nearly all summer, so that it 

 outwits the most industrious hoe or plough that I 

 have yet seen. Unless you catch it in the first bloom- 

 ing, it gets ahead of you. 



The field veronica is an innocent weed, but its 

 ability to get on in life is remarkable. It stole into 

 our vineyards like a thief in the night; where it came 

 from I have no knowledge; for twenty years there 

 was no vestige of it; then suddenly it appeared, and 

 rapidly overspread the surface of the ground. It 

 blooms in April, and by the time the plough starts, 

 a sheet of delicate blue hovers over all the vineyard- 

 slopes. It is a low plant, only an inch or two high, 

 and the plough wipes it out completely; but the next 

 spring there it is again, thicker than ever, painting 

 the ground in the most delicate cerulean tints; it 



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