THE IRON-WEED. 93 



effects of the noted drought of that season were then 

 visible in all directions. Vegetation every-where was 

 dying or dead. All nature had put on an unwonted 

 garb whose prevailing color was brown. The grass 

 of the meadow had been cured into hay before it was 

 cut. The leaves of the maple and beech were shriv- 

 eled and dying. Ko blue lobelias greeted, as in 

 Augusts gone by, my wandering footsteps. No cardi- 

 nal flowers waved their red pennons above the sedges 

 of the swamp, for both swamp and sedges were things 

 of the past. Only the coarse iron-weed with its cyme 

 of purple flowers seemed to be flourishing in the 

 parched, dry soil; holding its own where all else was 

 perishing: thus proving itself well worthy its name 

 tou^h and indestructible as iron. 



O 



In the great contest for supremacy forever going on 

 among all plants as well as among all animals, the 

 rag-weed, fox-tail, white-top, etc., go down before the 

 creeping, smothering power of the Kentucky bluc- 

 ufi'ass ; but this rough, ungainly weed ne'er gives up 

 the struggle, and in many places grows as rankly in the 

 farmer's best lowland pastures as does its cousin, the 

 greater rag-weed or horse-weed, along the margins of 

 his cultivated bottom fields. It is seemingly becoming- 

 more abundant each year, and at present is undoubt- 

 edly the worst weed with which the stock farmers of 

 Indiana have to contend. Let us note briefly some of 

 the characters which render it so tenacious of life and 

 so diflic'ult of extermination. 



Its perennial roots are stout and fibrous, and each 

 autumn are filled with a sufficient supply of nourish- 

 ment to give the stalk of the ensuing year a good 



