14 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



fields have long been known to the enthusiastic botanical col- 

 lector as one of the most prolific sources of strange weeds. Such 

 is certainly the case today, and there is little reason to suppose 

 that the field seed of colonial days was much purer. Every 

 year brings to New England many dangerous pests through this 

 source alone. Some of them die out after one or two seasons 

 and cause little trouble, but others, like the king-devil weed 

 {Hieracium praealtum) and its less notorious but none the less 

 mischievous relatives have Avithin a decade become sources of 

 peril in many parts of New England, The king devil itself has 

 had its full share of notoriety, particularly in the Kennebec val- 

 ley, where its ravages have been so great as to stimidate a local 

 movement (I believe unsuccessful) to secure state protection for 

 the farmers ; but some other members of the genus Hieracium 

 or hawkweeds have had their vices less exposed to censure. In 

 1900 there appeared in a hayfield at Cutler (near Machias), 

 Maine, a small patch — a few feet across — of the closely related 

 Hieracium florihrmdun I. The plant was looked upon merely as a 

 curiosity, but in July, 1902, when I first saw the plant, it had 

 spread by means of its strong and very numerous runners and in 

 two years had utterly ruined more than an acre of grass land. 

 The plants were then in full bloom, and the owner of the farm, 

 lamenting the destruction of his hay crop, assured me that he 

 would allow none of the hawkweed to mature seed, and that he 

 would immediately have the field plowed and salted. In late 

 August, however, I was again in Cutler and was dismayed to see 

 that the entire acre had not only seeded freely, but that all the 

 light feathery fruits were then scattered. Since 1902, this hawk- 

 weed has been found at several other places in New England 

 and Ne^v Brunswick — even as far south as central Connecticut. 

 Whether the seed w^hicli originated these new colonies staited 

 from the ruined and neglected farm at Cutler is of course impos- 

 sible to say, but it is now a hard fact that Hieracium Jf or ilnu) dam 

 has a foothold in New England which will make it as daTigerous 

 an enemy to the haj'field as the king devil or the orange hawk- 

 weed {Hieracinm aurantiacvm) . Other hawkweeds, Hiera- 

 cium pratense and H. Pilosella, closely related to the three more 

 troublesome species, have also made a start in New England 



