52 ~ 



are able to maintain tliemselves. The garden, of course, requires constant 

 weeding. Practically all the weeds on the place are foreigners. 



I just referred to a neglected bit of land, to an idle plot of ground. 

 This at tirst, eight years ago, was covered with Blue grass and grazed. 

 The number of plants that have come in since is something remarkable. 

 Equally remarkable is the absence of common weeds ; they seem not to get 

 a start in the dense covering of Blue grass. Barnlot weeds are never found 

 in that patch, nor some of the common garden weeds. Among the plants 

 to appear were a number of trees and shrubs. Unfortunately, three years 

 ago, a cow got in and many of the plants were killed off, but the way the 

 shrubby and woody plants spring up would indicate that in a short time 

 there will be a forest and light-loving plants will be wholly crowded out. 



It is interesting to note how in the South, old exhausted cotton land 

 when left to nature grows up in pine forests. Old Field Pine, but the wood 

 has so little substance that a tree, when cut, will wholly fade away in the 

 course of a year. It certainly takes a long time for exhausted soil to regain 

 its strength and for trees worth while to again get a foothold. 



Besides tramping along railways in search of new arrivals, I fre- 

 quently take strolls about neglected parts of the city to see whether any new 

 weeds have come in and what changes have taken place among those 

 already present. One day last summer I started out from the heart of the 

 city where there is no vegetation, no grass and no trees, because streets 

 and sidewalks are everywhere paved. I went along one of the neglected 

 streets which is either deep in dust or iu mud. This street has practically 

 no trees at all. Along the gutters were found growing a number of weeds, 

 practically all foreign ones, that seem able to resist the dense clouds of 

 dust that are deposited ou them. The plants are white with dust, or 

 rather grayish, almost resembling desert plants. I passed several waste 

 lots covered with weeds, nearly all of European origin. I finally reached 

 Shanty Town, where weeds flourish among the human habitations. .The 

 people thejuselves. like the weeds, were of the neglected kind. A little 

 farther on I came to the railway shop, with its large roundhouse, where 

 an immense amount of dense black smoke arises. Now. since our prevail- 

 ing winds are from the southwest and west, the smoke, of course, blows off 

 in the op])osite direction. I was surprised to see that all tli^e trees to the 

 east in line witli the smoke were dead, a numlier of dead trunks were still 

 standing, When I first came here, fourteen years ago, there were a num- 



