XXXVII. WEEDS OF THE FIELD 



"In the garden more grows 

 Than the gardener sows." 



— Spanish Proverb. 



Weeds were not invented by the Devil to plague the fanner. 

 Oh, no. Weeds were here before there were farmers. They 

 were here holding their own on the bits of fallow ground nature 

 allowed them — on the new-made bar left by a receding flood; 

 on the denuded slope laid bare by a landslide ; in the ashes of 

 a devastating fire: wherever there was a bit of soil left open, 

 weeds were ready to enter in and possess it. 



Weeds were fewer before the days of agriculture than now; 

 for nature kept most of the land occupied with more per- 

 manent crops. It is due to the farmer himself that weeds 

 have become so abundant. The farmer turns the soil and 

 makes it ready for new occupants. He could not prepare it 

 more to the liking of the weeds if he were doing it expressly 

 for their benefit. They like the tilth of soil his plow and 

 harrow yield; they like his tillage and his fertilizers; they 

 like his dust-mulch; and, if they do not chance to be up- 

 rooted, they show their appreciation by lusty growth. What 

 magnificent specimens of weeds they do become in a rich 

 field. The wild ones of the same species that we find in the 

 woods are puny things in comparison. 



Weeds have a wonderful way — it takes a figure from the 

 language of business to express it — a wonderful way of 

 "getting in on the ground floor". The field is no sooner pre- 

 pared than they are found occupying it. They nearly all 

 spring from seeds, and their seeds have great facility at 

 getting about. Seeds of dandelion, thistle, hawkweed, etc., 

 travel by air and settle in every field. Seeds of cocklebur, 

 burdock, pitchforks (fig. 39), etc., travel by pack animals, 



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