CHAPTER VII 



AN INTERLUDE: SOME GARDEN 

 WEEDS 



"One can imagine no more irrepressible rabble than these weeds of 

 the garden. They seem possessed almost of a conscious life, and to 

 push and shove and scramble for place like a hard-headed, thick- 

 skinned, piratical crew," — S. D. Kirkham. 



SCARCELY thirteen years ago John Bur- 

 roughs in a chapter on a Bunch of Herbs 

 made an interesting sub-division, Weeds, 

 ind in the "long Hst," as he calls it, 42 were given. 

 Today the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture issues a "set composed of 100 samples of 

 weed seeds — those most commonly found in the 

 commercial seeds of cultivated plants." It "is 

 intended for the use of educational institutions 

 and seedsmen in identifying seeds by compari- 

 son." Considered as the bane of a school garden 

 a large proportion of these weeds may be omitted; 

 not because they are not bold robbers of rich soil 

 but because many of them belong to special 

 areas of our country, and in their local haunts are 

 as well known as is the dandelion everywhere. If 

 they occur in the school garden it will be as iso- 

 lated individuals or as a plant colony, and prob- 



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