246 GLEANINGS FROM NATURE. 



more than that, and that the term "weed" implies 

 something further than mere abstract hostility to the 

 agricultural interest ; it " implies a certain ingrained 

 coarseness, scrubbinees, squalor and sordidness, besides 

 connoting, in nine times out of ten, some stringiness 

 of fibre, hairiness of surface, or prickly defensive 

 character as well." Of most weeds this is true, but it 

 is the possession of just such characters that has 

 enabled them to succeed so well in crowding out and 

 displacing other wild and cultivated plants which, 

 perhaps, were in the right place, and in taking, if 

 unmolested, entire possession of the soil. 



Weeds are, of course, among the worst enemies 

 with which the farmers and market gardeners have 

 to deal, and the questions of eradication, quarantine, 

 and the like are becoming each year of greater state 

 and national importance. 



Each locality, and each farm for that matter, has 

 its worst weed, the species depending upon climate, 

 soil, method of cultivation, etc. Indeed there is no 

 spot on earth, unless it be a desert, where they do not 

 abound. A few years ago Mr. Byron D. Halstead 

 asked, through the Botanical Gazette and other peri- 

 odicals, that a list of the 20 worst weeds, in the order 

 of their injuriousness, in any locality or territory in 

 the United States, be sent to him. He tabulated the 

 reports which he received from a'll parts of the coun- 

 try and found that 34 species had been mentioned at 

 least five times in the lists. Of these 34, no less than 

 32 are known to occur in Indiana, though some of 

 them only in a few localities of the State. Taking 

 from the list of 34 the 20 species which were consid- 



