WEEDS. 7 1 



CHAPTER XVI. 



WEEDS. 

 "A weed is a plant in the wrong place." 



WEEDS ARE PLANTS. White clover is frequently sown with 

 grass seeds on lawns, yet a few plants in a fine lawn of June 

 grass would be considered weeds. Tares are grown as a 

 fodder crop ; in a wheat field we call them weeds. Ox-eye 

 daisies and goldenrod in a flower garden are fine plants, but in 

 pastures or hay fields they are weeds. A weed is a plant just 

 as much as wheat, corn, or clover. It has all the parts of 

 plants, grows like other plants, and forms new plants. But it 

 is a plant that we do not want ; it is a plant out of its place, 

 or, rather, it is a plant in the wrong place. 



OBJECTIONS TO WEEDS. We might say that weeds are 

 objected to because, whether valuable or not in other places 

 or at other times, they are not what we are working for. 

 If a man engaged in moulding plowshares should find one- 

 half of his work turning out to be large cannon balls he would 

 consider his work, to that extent, a failure, because his business 

 is to make plowshares, not cannon balls. So if a farmer finds 

 his work resulting half in grain or hay, half in weeds, his work 

 is a failure to that extent. But we must have particulars. 



i st. Weeds require some labor, whether we permit them to 

 grow or try to destroy them. Sometimes our labor helps the 

 weeds to grow more rapidly, just because we do not under- 

 stand their nature. Weeds mean work. 



2nd. Weeds, through their roots, take up food from the soil. 

 Our most valuable plants do not take very much out of the 

 soil ; on the average not more than one-twentieth of their 



