A Handful of Weeds 351 
tinuous war. We can almost say that the worse 
nuisance a weed is from the agricultural standpoint, 
the more highly is it adapted to the conditions of 
its life, the more is it a triumph of reproductive 
Nature. 
It is common just because it has been able to 
travel, to endure, to survive, to live down and 
crowd out a host of things, prettier perhaps, but 
less able to battle for existence. 
Some weeds have timed themselves with won- 
derful accuracy to the operations of the farmer. 
That bugbear of English wheat-growers, the scar- 
let-poppy, has acquired the habit of ripening its 
seed-vessels at the precise time when the wheat is 
ready for the sickle. 
In our land and latitude, after wheat is reaped, 
the fields are taken possession of by weeds which 
regulate their affairs with such nicety that they 
grow, blow, mature their seed-vessels, and scatter 
their seed, all between the ingathering of the har- 
vest and the coming of the frost. 
‘‘They blow,’’ we say, for all weeds bear flowers. 
Most sorts belong to that immense and successful 
botanical family, the Composite, which produce a 
very great number of very minute flowers, often so 
grouped as to resemble single larger flowers. To 
