258 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 
and go wherever the animals carry them. These are less 
ubiquitous. Other seeds of weeds are distributed with the 
mud that adheres to the feet of men and animals, and to the 
wheels of vehicles. This is the chief mode of distribution for 
our conimonest weeds. The seeds become embedded in a 
thin layer of mud, and when dropped, find themselves well 
situated for growing. This method properly plants them. 
They travel, also, with the farmer’s cargoes; with his hay and 
straw and feed and with his imperfectly winnowed grain; and 
they are distributed along with these commodities to remote 
regions. So, in any place, we find the new and unusual 
weeds, like cur western oxybaphus, and the Russian thistle, 
first appearing along the railroad track, where dropped from 
passing cars. 
Weeds are such opportunists; they make the most of small 
favors. If they can not get more, they will take less. One 
well-fed cocklebur plant in a rich cornfield may attain an 
almost treelike stature, and another, whose lot is cast on a 
barren sand-bar, may not attain a finger-height. But the 
latter does not give up because soil is barren and water scarce. 
It may develop only a few leaves and bear only one bur, but it 
ripens good seed in that bur, and is ready for the next season’s 
opportunity. Dandelions, in rich meadows, grow often knee- 
high to a man; but on the lawn, after repeated clipping, 
they will bloom so close to the ground that the mower passes 
harmlessly over their heads. Morning-glories, finding no 
trellis at hand, will cheerfully accept a cornstalk in its stead, or 
in the absence of all support, will spread over the bare ground. 
Nature sows many kinds of seeds in every field. Some of 
her sowings are welcome, like that of blue-grass in the fields 
that we are turning into pasture. Most of them come to 
nought because the seedlings cannot withstand tillage. They 
fall before the first onslaught of the cultivator. Fortunately for 
the farmer, thisis thefateof nearly all plants that spring from 
