Certain plants follow man, dispute possession of his garden with 

 him, and spring up wherever he makes a path or road. Many come 

 from foreign countries. No legislation, no quarantine, can keep 

 them out. Their seeds are sly, furnished with all sorts of devices 

 for catching on to the dress of man, the hide or hair of animals, 

 the feathers of birds, and even the bodies of insects. Great steam- 

 ships and railways give them free passage. They are "vegetable 

 tramps." Says fohii Burroughs : " They are going east, west, 

 north, south. They walk, they fly, they swim; they steal a ride, they 

 travel by rail, by flood, by wind ; they go underground and they go 

 above, across lots, and by the highway." 



Not all weeds are unsightly, nor have they all dull blossoms. Most 

 of them, even the pretty ones, make themselves unwelcome by becom- 

 ing too common. Webster says a weed is " any plant growing in 

 cultivated ground to the injury of the crop or desired vegetation, or 

 to the disfigureinent of the place ; an unsightly, useless, or injurious 

 plant." 



Such as they are, we are bound to give them space in our vege- 

 table economy. The " wheat and tares,'' we are told, " the good and 

 the bad, will grow together till the end of the world." < 



