DISSEMINATION OF WEEDS 
Most various are the ways and most interesting are the natural 
mechanical appliances by which plant offspring are helped to leave 
the place of their birth and “strike out in the world for themselves.” 
All seeds are great travelers; they are carried by wind and water, 
by wild and domesticated animals, and by birds; they journey 
by highway and railroad and are parts of steamship cargoes. By 
far the worst culprit of all, in the distribution of seeds of the kind 
of plants most adverse to his prosperity, is the farmer himself. 
Wind-carried seeds are of many kinds. Some, like the Dandelion, 
Milkweeds, and Thistles, and the pernicious Orange Hawkweed, are 
made buoyant by a parachute of fine, downy plumes on which they 
are lifted and wafted away on even the gentlest breeze. In other 
cases, like those of Tumbling Mustard and Russian Thistle, the 
entire plant is broken off at its base or its shallow roots are wrenched 
from the soil, and it is sent rolling and tumbling along the ground, 
shaking out its seeds as it goes. Over the wide levels of the prairie 
states these weeds travel far, but they are not so much to be dreaded 
in the much-fenced and uneven country of the East. The encrust- 
ing of snow in winter makes a smooth surface over which many 
seeds may be blown abroad that would not otherwise be able to 
get far away from their parent plant. Some seeds, like the Docks, 
have corky, membranous wings which not only help to upbear 
them on the wind but also cause them to float on water. Some 
plants, like the Oxalis, or Ladies’ Sorrel, and the Crane’s-bill, 
are furnished with spring guns which shoot the seeds to some 
distance. 
Many very “pesky” weeds are so because their seeds are gifted 
by nature with such a marvelous variety of teeth, hooks, and barbs, 
by which they are able to catch and cling to the fur or wool of 
animals and to the clothing of passers-by. Burdocks and Cockle- 
burs, Beggarlice, and the Pitchfork Weed, or Devil’s Bootjack, are 
9 
