774 Figuring against Weeds. 
he succeeded quite as well as some college juniors I have seen. 
And when, in after years, the time came for him to take up the 
study of botany more systematically, the objects of his study were 
to him not dim and unreal phantoms, but familiar friends. 
To be continued. 
FIGURING AGAINST WEEDS. 
BY BYRON D. HALSTEAD. 
fas weeds are among the worst enemies of the farmer. They 
cause a loss of many millions of dollars annually to the State 
of Iowa. This is not only in the diminution of crops but no small 
share of the outgo is in labor in order to prevent an entire loss of 
the crop. 
Some persons, who as yet have secured no world-wide reputation 
for keen common sense, are inclined to look with much favor upon 
weeds. To their visionary minds they are simply a proper stimulus 
for the profitable tillage of the soil, and therefore may be 
considered as the friend instead of the enemy of the progressive 
farmer. If it were not for the weeds, which spring up and choke 
the neglected crop, there would not be sufficient incentive to good 
husbandry. Good and poor farming would be more equally 
rewarded. The man who hoes and the one who leaves his corn 
field for the shade and game along the wooded stream would stand 
a common chance of plenty at the harvest time. In short, weeds 
are the appointed means of putting a premium upon farm industry 
and furnish one reason why it does not pay to be shiftless. 
This is turning the curse into a blessing, and if every one woul 
practically make this turn there would need to be but little more 
said. 
Weeds are a good deal like the sun and the rain in pean 
the just and the unjust, with perhaps this variation, that the w 
seed abundantly on the neglected land of a shiftless farmer and a 
same seeds find their best places for growth in the clean rich fi 
of the careful husbandman. 
