22 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ment of aggressive and for the most part unattractive plants 

 forces npon our own more sensitive and more attractive natives. 

 The latter, as ah-eady sufficiently emphasized, are often fastidious 

 as to the soil and conditions in which they grow ; the former 

 ready to thrive in almost any surroundings. On some of our 

 northern rivers which were early followed by the Jesuit explorers, 

 aggressive European weeds — the bladder campion and the mug- 

 wort, for instance — • which were probably introduced in the 

 blankets of the voyageicrs, have now covered large areas and 

 choked out the native vegetation. In central Maine, the present 

 stronghold of the orange hawkweed or devil's paint-brush, that 

 showy and energetic plant has already entered mossy cedar 

 SAvamps and is beginning to crowd from their native knolls the 

 mitre- wort, Moneses, and other delicate species. 



The remedy for this weed evil lies primarily with such an 

 organization as the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Like 

 the problem of the gypsy moth and the brown -tail moth its solu- 

 tion must depend \ipon cooperation. Isolated endeavors to keep 

 out aggressive and uninvited occupants of our land are only of 

 minor value ; but if the problem can be taken up and its solution 

 pushed by a wide-reaching organization such as yours much may 

 yet be accomplished in checking what has become a menace to 

 every landoAvner. 



