CROPS AND PROFITS. 125 



ing a thousand bushels of potatoes ; yet another, 

 shows fine lines of growing corn, and a brown area, 

 where a closer look would reveal the delicate growth 

 of fresh-starting carrots and mangel. All the rest 

 in waving grass ; not so clean as could be wished, 

 for I see tawny stains of blossoming sorrel, and fields 

 whitened like a sheet, with daisies. 



If there be any cure for daisies, short of a clean 

 fallow every second yeai", I do not know it ; at least, 

 not in a region where your good neighbors allow 

 them to mature seed every year, and stock your fields 

 with every strong wind, afresh. 



Heavy topdressing is recommended for their 

 eradication, but it is not effective ; so far as I can 

 see, the interlopers, if once established, enjoy heavy 

 feeding. A rye crop is by many counted an exter- 

 minator of this pest ; but it will find firm footing 

 after rye. Thorough and clean tillage, with a sys- 

 tem of rotation, afford the only security. 



It is not Burns' " wee-tipped " daisy that is to be 

 dealt with ; it is a sturdier plant our ox-eye daisy 

 of the fields ; there is no modesty in its flaunting air, 

 and the bold uplift of its white and yellow face. 



I never thought there was a beauty in it, until, on 

 a day years ago after a twelvemonth's wandering 

 over the fields of the Continent, I came upon a little 

 pot of it, under the wing of the Madeleine, on the 



