UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
plough, would they not succeed just as well nearer 
the surface, or with only a tap-root like most other 
plants? This habit is doubtless much older than the 
plough, and it is very doubtful if the explanation 
can be found in the theory of natural selection. 
Quack-grass is baffling for the same reason; there is 
a family root that travels horizontally under the soil 
and sends up shoots all along its course; dig out a 
yard of it, and yet if you have left an inch, the plant 
renews itself. The chickweed is a wonderfully en- 
terprising plant. It is one of the very first to start 
in business in the spring; it begins to bloom in March 
or April; it matures its seeds rapidly, and keeps on 
blooming and seeding nearly all summer, so that it 
outwits the most industrious hoe or plough that I 
have yet seen. Unless you catch it in the first bloom- 
ing, it gets ahead of you. 
The field veronica is an innocent weed, but its 
ability to get on in life is remarkable. It stole into 
our vineyards like a thief in the night; where it came 
from I have no knowledge; for twenty years there 
was no vestige of it; then suddenly it appeared, and 
rapidly overspread the surface of the ground. It 
blooms in April, and by the time the plough starts, 
a sheet of delicate blue hovers over all the vineyard- 
slopes. It is a low plant, only an inch or two high, 
and the plough wipes it out completely; but the next 
spring there it is again, thicker than ever, painting 
the ground in the most delicate cerulean tints; it 
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