380 ECOLOGY. 



around, and this was waiting sale or improvement. But there 

 were innumerable seeds of a great variety of plants in that vacant 

 lot. They sprang into growth to occupy the land, and a great 

 tangle of luxuriant vegetation was the result. Burdock, tower- 

 ing pigweeds, grasses, beggar-ticks, mullein, St. John's wort, 

 masses of giant goldenrods, blue-rayed asters, occupied every 

 inch of the ground in a grand medley of kind and color. 

 Through this mass, briers and blackberry bushes pushed their 

 thorny sprays, laying hold on you if you attempted entrance. 

 Children plucked the beautiful flowers, but the flowers they 

 cared not, neither took they thought for the future day when 

 they must give way under the influence of man to stone walls 

 and a plain greensward, so joyous were they in the mere 

 thought of existence and radiant beauty. 



