AN interlude: some garden weeds 



Some few are more common in the roadside 

 colonies. The road is the place all weeds love, 

 — as much as does the human traveler or tramp, 

 — if they have means of their own by which to 

 travel or fly or even if they must steal a ride to 

 some new home by hooking on to coat of pass- 

 ing man or beast. From the road, we would not 

 wish to banish them. There, we who ride or 

 tramp for pleasure appreciate their color, and 

 their form, but less often know their queer and 

 curious habits, and means of survival in the wayside 

 struggle for life. When in some region we find 

 what we may have known as a nuisance, safely 

 cultivated as a flower, we are impressed with the 

 truth of the saying "a weed is a plant misplaced." 

 Weeds, then, are excellent from an aesthetic 

 standpoint. In nature's plan they cover with a 

 restful, cool mantle of green every waste place 

 that man fails to cultivate; and there is a 

 touch of grim satire in their luxuriance, as if 

 " the rough muse" were bidding man discover how 

 rich the earth for his own use, how costly his 

 neglect to reap such wealth. In nature's realm, 

 weeds — most prolific of seed bearers — have their 

 economic value also. The despised ragweed, for 

 example, holds its seeds until the birds in winter 

 need them to satisfy their hunger. Fall brings the 

 time when insects hibernate and our year-round 

 birds become vegetarians on a diet of dry seeds, 

 for which, as supply houses, the weeds figure 

 largely. 



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