HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE. [45 



scabious, should then also be drawn by hand, and this should 

 always be done before their seeds are perfected, as thereby a great 

 increase of these noxious plants may be prevented. To shew the 

 importance of attending to this subject of destroying weeds before 

 they perfect their seeds, it may be observed that the business, if 

 well done, will lessen every year, but if neglected will increase be- 

 yond calculation ; for 



One year's seeding, makes seven years' weeding ; 



But one year's good weeding, may prevent seeding. 



As a preventative is much better than a cure, it would certainly 

 be an improvement in our rural polity, if it were made presentable 

 and fineable at quarter sessions, and the offender punished by fine 

 accordingly who should suffer weeds to run to seed on his premises, 

 particularly those of the class syngenesia, which having their seeds 

 furnished with feathers and wings, will disperse them over a whole 

 country. Mr. Marshall thinks an indictment at the court-leet 

 might be preferred for such a nuisance, and matters of less import- 

 ance have engaged the attention of the Legislature. 



The following is a list of the most troublesome and pernicious 

 weeds of this class, growing in hedges, road-sides, on heaps of 

 compost and manure, and in waste places, as well as in grass and 

 cultivated land : 1. coltsfoot, (tussilago farfara), the seed flies in 

 April and May ; 2. creeping thistle, (serratula arvensis), the seed 

 flies in July or August ; 3. great or spear thistle, provincially boar 

 thistle, (carduus lanceolatus), flies in August and September ; 4. 

 sow thistles (sonchus arvensis), flies in August and September ; 5. 

 smooth succory, (crepis tectorum), often in foul oat crops, the seed 

 flies from midsummer to autumn; 6. groundsel, (tenecio vulgaris), 

 the seed flies all the summer. Many other sorts have the same 

 quality, as ragwort, (seneciojacob&a) ; hawkweed, (hieracium umbel" 

 latum), and many others. 



The seeds of these weeds, when fully ripe, will hover in the air, 

 and in windy weather, like winged insects, fly to any distance, till 

 saturated with moisture or becalmed, when they deposit themselves 

 on cultivated ground, or newly-raised banks of earth, where they 

 soon vegetate and establish themselves in vigour. Many persons 

 have supposed, from observing their growth upon newly-raised 

 banks of maiden earth, such as canal spoil, &c. that they had been 

 dug with such soil out of the earth ; whereas, nothing can be more 

 simple or natural than their flight from the parent plant, borne up by 

 feathers through a current of air. 



