A Handful of Weeds 349 
places west of the Mississippi where wild-carrot, de- 
spised intruder on Eastern lawns, is cosseted and 
extolled under the appropriate alias of ‘ lace- 
flower.’” It is a pity that we, in the Eastern 
States, have become blind to the beauty of its 
feathery leaves and its wheels of delicate bloom, 
which in later August fill every field and roadside 
with unloved loveliness. 
Indeed, all weeds are much in evidence in late 
summer and autumn. The flowers of most sorts 
are inconspicuous, but the seeds which follow com- 
pel attention by sheer force of numbers and ubiq- 
uity. They are here to-day to fight the farmers 
because they practised, ages ago, what the farmers 
have learned only within much more recent times. 
Nature has taken extraordinary care that the 
seeds do not drop at the roots of the parent-plant 
into an exhausted soil. The weeds sow themselves 
broadcast each autumn. Some are provided with 
feathery plumes, and thus made so buoyant that 
the lightest breeze will bear them fast and far. 
Every autumn gust is freighted with a mixed com- 
pany of these little flyaways. Thistle, sow-thistle, 
dandelion, milkweed, and golden-rod seeds all fly 
on feathery wings, and thus the respective families 
are kept up, and are spread over the country. 
