CHAPTER XVII 



WEEDS. ESCAPED FROM CULTIVATION 



Certain plants follow, with persistency, the plow and hoe. They 

 prefer soft, cultivated ground to the rocks, woods, and fields. 

 Much of the farmer's problem is how to keep out the unprofitable 

 plants. Many are immigrants. Great steamships and railways 

 give them free passage. They are "vegetable tramps." John 

 Burroughs says: "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 under ground 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 becoming 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 disfigurement 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." 



In this chapter are also grouped a few plants which have 

 "escaped" and, in certain localities, are found growing wild. 



Day-flower (Commelina communis) . Page 299. Found in door- 

 yards and gardens. 



Day Lily (Hemerocallis fulva). Page 150. An escape. 



Tiger Lily (Lilium tigrinum). Page 152. An escape. 



Star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum). Page 46. An 

 escape. 



(O. nutans). Page 47. Seldom found. An escape from gardens. 



Grape Hyacinth {Muscari botryoides). Page 300. Found oc- 

 casionally in fence-rows and corners. An escape. 



Yellow Dock (Rumex crispus). Page 26. A common weed. 



Bitter Dock (R. obtusifolius) . Page 26. 



Field or Sheep Sorrel (R. Acetosella). Page 251. A weed 

 found almost everywhere in cultivated ground and lawns, 



Smaller Green Dock (R. conglomerates) . Page 27. 



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