Arable Land 
These weeds and a few other plants were colonising the 
ground and making it fit for better kinds of vegetation. 
It would become, if left alone, a bushy meadow or 
heather moor. 
Weeds are remarkable for combining in a most un- 
usual way the very best characteristics of Conservativism 
and of advanced Radicalism. They are stubborn and 
tenacious, holding on obstinately to what is good, but 
they are always ready for new adventures and quite 
adaptable to new conditions, 
Thus, for instance, when a foreign weed, Vicia orobus, 
established itself in Germany, it was found that it 
flowered twice in spring andin autumn. The spring form 
is taller than the surrounding herbage, and is very shaggy 
or hairy, apparently because it requires protection against 
the inclemency of the weather. But the late flowering 
autumn plants have no hairs, for they are not taller than 
their neighbours, and require no such help.’ It is of 
course quite usual to find our weeds flowering at 
different seasons. But they are specially ingenious in 
the exact way in which they time their appearances, so 
as to coincide with our ordinary agricultural crops. 
Some of the smaller corn weeds grow up with the 
corn, but take care to shed their seed before it is ripe 
and ready for harvest, Those which are about as tall as 
the corn itself seem to ripen with it, so that their seeds 
accompany the grain and are thrashed out and sown 
again with it. Others again are taller than the oat 
stalks, and their fruits and seeds are distributed before 
harvest. Then again there are others which come up 
in the bare stubble fields, and so can shed their fruit 
without any interference. 
There is just the same ingenuity in the case of those 
which are found in turnip or potato fields. Some are 
very quick and grow ahead of the turnips ; others may 
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