2.V? 



Weeds. 



forced cultivation results in a far better crop than would be realized 

 with neither weeds nor cultivation. The fertilizing influence resulting 

 from the decay of weeds in the soil is not without its value, and it is 

 generally considered better for fallow land to be shaded even by a 

 crop of weeds than to be fully exposed to the direct influence of the 

 burning sun. But these are only the few bright spots on a dark back- 

 ground, the small good that may indirectly como from a great evil. 



The question might here be asked, How do weeds prove detrimental 

 to growing crops? Chiefly in two ways. By taking from the soil the 

 nutrient material which should be left for the cultivated plant, and by 

 crowding and overshadowing this plant and thus depriving it of its neces- 

 sary quantity of air and sunlight. There are a few cultivated plants so 

 vigorous and rapid in their growth that if given a fair chance at the 

 start they keep ahead of most weeds, and turn the tide of victory 

 against them. Buckwheat, for example, is sometimes sown not only 

 as a useful plant but as a powerful ally in subduing weeds. But as a 

 rule cultivated plants are weaker than pestilent weeds and in the 

 struggle for existence they yield to their more vigorous opponents un- 

 less aided by mau. The law expressed by " the survival of the fittest" 

 in this case gives the survival to the most unfit, so far as the purposes 

 of man are concerned. It is an interesting fact that, to such an ex- 

 tent have a few cultivated plants learned to depend upon man for 

 aid in the struggle for existence, if his aid should be withdrawn, we 

 have reason to believe they would soon become extinct. As examples, 

 wheat and maize, one a representative of the food plants of the Old 

 World, the other, of the New, are nowhere known in a wild state, and 

 when left to shift for themselves they nowhere become permanently 

 established. Their dependence upon man for continued existence is 

 even greater apparently than the dependence of man upon them for 

 subsistence. But they furnish a very suggestive and beautiful illus- 

 tration of the extent of the interdependence between man and culti- 

 vated plants. The welfare of each is dependent upon the other. So 

 it would seem that man, who was once put in charge of the Garden 

 of Eden to dress it and to keep it, has not been utterly deprived of 

 the trust then committed to him. He is still made the keeper of a 

 few plants, the relics, so to speak, of the long lost Eden. These he 

 must protect against the thorns and thistles that the earth brings 

 forth naturally and easily. 



"Whence do weeds come? Some are descendants of species native 

 to the land, and they insist on their right to their inheritance. Others 

 are immigrants from foreign countries and others still are settlers 



