i88 THE JOY OF GARDENS 



Alone you are innocent; with a following you would be a 

 menace to society. For this I cast you upon the blazing 

 pyre from which the smoke rises in thank offering for 

 the blessings of autumn." 



Mints, calamus, herbs, roots, and pine cones brought 

 from the hilltop made a fragrant smoke as the weed fire 

 died to its embers. The weed killer and his company 

 passed along on the road by which we had come, uproot- 

 ing and looking for stranger plants waiting to make in- 

 roads on the next year's crops. The blackberry tangles, a 

 place of joy to flower lovers, knew no mercy, because 

 these are the hosts of the wheat rusts. 



A chill blast coming like a mighty sign from the north, 

 a flurry of snowflakes from the clouds, bade us hasten on 

 to the lowlands, where the amber of a declining sun 

 painted a land in which it seemed ever afternoon. Here 

 the farmers were weed burning too, and neat housewives 

 cleaning gardens. It was a weedy paradise on either side 

 of the road, as if human foresight had been bent upon 

 affairs at home, forgetting that mischief-makers were 

 gathering burs in the public highway to make ready for an 

 onslaught of mischief. 



How scornfully we speak of those who vegetate ! Thus 

 are we guilty of flippancy of thought and speech. Judg- 

 ment and reason are lacking when we overlook the power 

 of the creatures of vegetation. We imagine that they are 

 tied to the earth, prisoners of circumstance. Far from it. 



