Weeds. 



253 



from more or less distant parts of our own country. Plant seeds are 

 scattered everywhere by various agencies. Nature abhors idleness even 

 in the soil, and wherever there is a bare spot of ground large enough 

 to admit a little rain and a little sunshine there plants are sure to grow, 

 provided they can obtain the necessary food. The bitter weed and 

 beggar-ticks are examples of native weeds ; purslane, ox-eye daisy and 

 Canada thistle, of foreign weeds, while the hairy Eudbeckia, some- 

 times called " yellow daisy," is a western plant that has migrated east- 

 ward and invaded our pastures and meadows, in which, in many locali- 

 ties, it is scarcely less abundant or less injurious than the ox-eye 



Having made out a list of fifty species of plants which seemed to me 

 to justly merit being called the fifty most troublesome weeds of our 

 State, I found that thirty-six of these were immigrants from other 

 countries, nearly all from Europe, while fourteen were native. From 

 this it would appear that 72 per cent, of our worst weeds are of foreign 

 origin, 28 per cent, native. But the foreign element in the whole 

 phamogamic flora of our State is only about 16 per cent., thus showing 

 a much larger proportion of introduced, naturalized plants to be trouble- 

 some weeds than of our native plants. On the other hand, by far 

 the greater number of useful cultivated plants also have been derived 

 from other countries, so that we get the good with the bad. 



How are weeds introduced ? Some plants have been brought here 

 for cultivation, but have escaped to fields and way-sides and become 

 established as weeds. The wild carrot (Dana* carat a) and wild par- 

 snip (Pastinaca gativa) are doubtless examples of this kind. The com- 

 mon and much detested purslane (Portuhca oleracea) was once culti- 

 vated as a useful plant, but though it is not now considered worth 

 cultivating, in this country at least, it thrives in our gardens, and is 

 one of our most annoying weeds. Corn spurry also (Spergula arvensis) 

 was once cultivated in Europe for fodder, but with us it is known only 

 as a weed. Some have been introduced as ornamental plants and have 

 escaped from flower gardens and door-yards to fields and waste places. 

 A comparatively recent introduction of this kind is the orange hawk- 

 weed, sometimes called " red daisy" and " devil's paint brush." 



Many weed-seeds find their way into our fields in company with the 

 seed we sow. Growers of seeds sometimes allow weeds to mature 

 among their seed crops and, in gathering, these weed-seeds become in- 

 termingled with them and are planted with them in the fields. In 

 this way pernicious weeds are many times unwittingly introduced 

 upon farms previously exempt from them. In this way corn cockle 



