OUR COMPOUND FLOWERS. 127 



fall, for since they are without a pappous disperser, an imme- 

 diate anchorage becomes necessary, lest they should be cast 

 on the dry shore on the one hand, or, on the other, carried into 

 too deep water, either accident being equally fatal to their germina- 

 tion ; and the reflex disposition of the prickles does not hinder their 

 burial in the soft mud, which is their proper seminal bed. See Fl. 

 Berw. ii. p. 288. 



The order embraces several agricultural weeds. The Coltsfoot is 

 probably the most troublesome of them, in clay soils especially, for 

 the penetrating and wide-spreading root is so tenacious of life that 

 neither deep-ploughing nor trenching will eradicate the plant*. It 

 will not, we presume, long resist the evil influence of surface-drain- 

 ing now become general ; and the same process may destroy the 

 Corn Sowthistle, — a vulgar weed to which a " radix nimium repta- 

 trix" gives a vicious permanency. The Ragweeds and Knapweed 

 are Ukewise common weeds, but not very injurious ; and it is well 

 known that the Ragweed, prevalent in the best of pastures where 

 oxen only are grazed, may be destroyed by pasturing sheep with 

 them. In our new pastures and meadows Thistles are sufficiently 

 abundant, and to eradicate them from the former the bondager is 

 annually employed for a few days ; and in meadows they are mown 

 with the hay, where they do no harm, for when dried, cattle eat them 

 without reluctance, and they are doubtless as nutritive as other 

 ingredients of the fodder t. We have still fields in our district over- 

 burdened with the Corn-Thistle, and where the reapers are gloved to 

 reap the harvest with impunity ; but careful industry has thinned 

 the species ever3rwhere, and now they are not, as in ancient times, 

 gathered from the corn for the purpose of feeding the cattle. The 

 farmer, when he eyes the vast profusion of seeds which every plant 

 produces J, and the manner in which they are disseminated, may 

 despair of ever seeing them entirely dispossessed of their prior claim 

 to his fields ; but with some less productive species he has nearly 

 succeeded, and the Corn-Marygold and Blue-Bottle are now rare 

 where of yore they gave name to lands, and afforded similes in fami- 

 liar conversation. Who now can trace to us the precise boundaries 

 of the " Yellow Goulands" in the Liberties of Berwick ? and how 

 few understand what it is to be " as blue as a Blaver " ? The Bo- 

 tanist who has seen them occupying a similar place to what they 

 once did with us in the Highlands, will regret the flowers that are 



* " I have completely overcome Colt's-foot by simply draining and 

 hoeing. It was never suffered to produce flowers, or fully to expand the 

 leaves ; this plan persevered in, and faithfully executed throughout one 

 entire season, was found suificient to subdue it." Holditch on the Weeds 

 of Agriculture, p. 37. 



t See the remarks under the genus Cnicus. 



X Dr. Woodward has calculated, that one thistle-seed will produce at 

 the first crop twenty-four thousand, and consequently five hundred and 

 seventy-six milUons of seeds at the second crop. Martyn's Virgilii Georg. 

 p. .34, edit. 1819. 



