56 FARM FRIENDS AND FARM FOES 



tillage which they have introduced. When their mission is 

 finally matured, therefore, they will disappear, because 

 there will be no place in which they can grow. It would 

 be a great calamity if they were now to disappear from 

 the earth, for the greater number of farmers still need the 

 discipline which they enforce. Probably not one farmer in 

 ten would till his. lands well if it were not for these pains- 

 taking schoolmasters, and many of them would not till at 

 all. Until farmers till for tillage's sake, and not to kill the 

 weeds, it is necessary that the weeds shall exist, but when 

 farmers do till for tillage's sake, then weeds will disappear 

 with no effort of ours." 



While the beneficence of weeds .as a whole must be ad- 

 mitted as a fortunate fact, it is also true that often they 

 are not even a blessing in disguise. Like other things 

 in Nature, the laws that govern them involve many in- 

 conveniences in special cases. Rain is a blessing, 

 but sometimes it causes suffering and loss of prop- 

 erty and even of life. Winds are necessary, but 

 often do serious harm by their violence. With 

 weeds, as with these direct 'forces of Nature, man 

 must adapt his operations to suit the conditions 

 that he finds upon his land in his efforts to make 

 it productive. 



Examples of weeds that could easily be dis- 

 pensed with are readily pointed out. The Mus- 

 tard in a newly planted grain field does not indi- 

 cate that tillage is needed, although it does in- 

 dicate that there has been carelessness in seed 

 selection. During rainy seasons the hoe and cultivator 

 must frequently be kept in operation to subdue weeds 

 much oftener- than any requirements of the crop alone 

 would necessitate. The weeds that appear late in the 



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