A YEAR IN THE FIELDS 



an integral part of every old homestead 

 Your smart new place will wait long before 

 they draw near it. Our knot-grass, that 

 carpets every old dooryard, and fringes 

 every walk, and softens every path that 

 knows the feet of children, or that leads to 

 the spring, or to the garden, or to the barn, 

 how kindly one comes to look upon it ! Ex- 

 amine it with a pocket glass and see how 

 wonderfully beautiful and exquisite are its 

 tiny blossoms. It loves the human foot, 

 and when the path or the place is long dis- 

 used other plants usurp the ground. 



The gardener and the farmer are osten- 

 sibly the greatest enemies of the weeds, 

 but they are in reality their best friends. 

 Weeds, like rats and mice, increase and 

 spread enormously in a cultivated country. 

 They have better food, more sunshine, and 

 more aids in getting themselves dissemi- 

 nated. They are sent from one end of the 

 land to the other in seed grain of various 

 kinds, and they take their share, and more 

 too, if they can get it, of the phosphates 

 and stable manures. How sure, also, they 

 are to survive any war of extermination that 

 is waged against them ! In yonder field are 

 ten thousand and one Canada thistles. The 



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