AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS 



used it for our children's parties long before we 

 knew that some varieties of it were cultivated 

 for salads. We readily accept beet tops, spinach 

 and Swiss chard as greens, but question the use 

 of the coarse pigweed whose tender shoots are as 

 much sought for food in some sections of our land 

 as were the young branchlets of the common 



nettle, which the early col- 

 onists boiled for pot herbs. 

 Some of the beneficial 

 / I weeds or medicinal herbs 



/I are described in the "Thir- 



t ff / ty Poisonous Plants of the 



United States." * With 

 the exception of the poi- 

 son ivy and oak, they are 

 not likely to injure man, 

 but only animals that ac- 

 cidentally crop them. In 

 Farmers' Bulletin No. 28, 

 Weeds and How to Kill 

 Them, some ten weeds are 

 considered as very obnox- 

 ious from the farmer's 

 standpoint and pertina- 

 cious in their hold on life. An even hundred are 

 listed and their characteristics tabulated. Of 

 these, some 25 or 30 are fairly universal, appear- 

 ing in cultivated fields and in the small garden. 



Couch Grass 



* Farmers' Bulletin No. 86. 

 Medicine. 



See also No. i88, Weeds Used in 



208 



