TROUBLE 261 



ing perennial and keeps itself going by means of its 

 colonizing rootlets and seeds, which are ripe in August. 

 Do not suffer it. 



In the loose soil of the garden Plantains are easy 

 enough to pull out. They are perennial and increase by 

 seeds which ripen in July. In paths and grass a curving 

 grapefruit knife is of great assistance in removing them. 



It is difficult to know how a great coarse thing like the 

 Burdock finds its way into the garden, but so it does and 

 is most unsightly. It is a biennial, with a great thick 

 taproot, which C. D. Warner says "goes deeper than 

 conscience." Cut below the crown of the plant and 

 apply a handful of salt. This will insure its speedy 

 demise. The curled-dock, too, is a coarse and ugly 

 perennial interloper, which should be pulled up before 

 seed forms. It harbours plant lice. Sheep Sorrel, or 

 Sourgrass, is a relative of the above, and on account of 

 its multitudinous seeds and fast- travelling perennial root- 

 stock becomes a great nuisance in the garden. Every 

 smallest particle of it should be removed. 



In this garden we have great trouble with Black Bind- 

 weed or Wild Buckwheat, a little twining annual vine 

 with shining, arrow-shaped leaves and small greenish 

 flowers. Strangulation is its delight, and the only 

 remedy against it is to remove it before seeding. 



Shepherd's Purse, a near relative of Pepper Grass, is 

 often quite an embarrassing little plague here, and it is 

 one of those weeds toward which I feel a kindness it is 



