A YEAR IN THE FIELDS 



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, — belonging, it is true, to a different 

 family of plants, — with its white, delicately 

 veined flowers, or the variety with yellow 

 flowers, is quite harmless. The same is 

 true of the mallow, the vetch or tare, and 

 other plants. We have no native plant so 

 indestructible as garden orpine, or live-for- 

 ever, which our grandmothers nursed and 

 for which they are cursed by many a farmer. 

 The fat, tender, succulent dooryard stripling 

 turned out to be a monster that would 

 devour the earth. I have seen acres of 

 meadow land destroyed by it. The way to 

 drown an amphibious animal is to never 

 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 plow, the hoe, the 

 cultivator to scorn, but grazing herds will 

 eventually scotch it. Our two species of 



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