396 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Aug. 



THE COMMOW MILK WEED — Asclepias Comuti. 



A fine patch of this plant 

 grew in the highway just be- 

 low "our house" when we 

 were boys. We remember 

 of playing with its flowers, 

 its freely-flowing milk, its 

 abundant pods, and its downy 

 seeds, which floated, balloon- 

 like, in the air, as a breath 

 of wind or a puff from the 

 children's lungs sent them 

 afloat — sowers going forth to 

 sow seed. Having been told 

 that nothing was made in 

 vain, we used to wonder what 

 all its milk and all its silk was 

 good for. We believe that 

 the latter was sometimes used 

 as a substitute for feathers in 

 beds, and that the children 

 thought the milk would cure, 

 or cause warts, — we have for- 

 gotten which. The books, 

 however, say it is of little 

 economical value. 



Besides the name given 

 above, the great botanist Lin- 

 naeus called it Asclepias Sy- 

 riaca, probably supposing it 

 to be a Syrian plant; but 

 Dr. Darlington says it is ex- 

 clusively an American spe- 

 cies. It is also called Silk- 

 weed, on account of the beautiful silky hairs The milkweed is not specially obnoxious to 

 of the seeds, which bear the latter to a long the farmer, and is not very diflicult to exter- 

 distance, and thus sometimes scatter it over minate, imless it has for a long time been al- 

 extensive districts. When this plant is wound- lowed to occupy the ground, and get perma- 

 ed, it emits an abundance of thick, milky nently established. It does not take root like 

 juice, resembling in both taste and color the the chickory, where it requires two men to 

 juice of the common garden lettuce. Indeed, pull up a single plant. 



the milkweed is by some called Wild Lettuce, I In the engraving, the small figure at the 

 we suppose on account of the resemblance of right represents a single flower, and that at 

 the juices in the two plants. | the left, the seed-bearing pods reduced in size. 



For the New England Farmer. 



FARM LABORERS. 



Change is characteristic of the times in 

 which we live. No part or department of 

 farming is exempt from its transforming influ- 

 en(!e. Some of these changes are hailed with 

 delight, as evident progressions ; but in the 

 older Northern States, there has been a change 

 in the character of its labor, which has recei\Hid 



anything but a cordial assent. Formerly in 

 New England farm help was composed exclu- 

 sively of her native sons and daughters. Of 

 late our native born young men and women 

 have souglit their homes and fortunes in the 

 new States, or in other pursuits in their own 

 States, until not only has the surplus been ab- 

 sorbed, but children leave their ancestral homes 

 and their aged and dependent parents to be 

 cared for, if cared for at all, by hirelings. 



