176 MY GROWING GARDEN 



ropes of "stick-tights" and my trousers were set 

 high with ''Spanish needles." The poke-weed 

 leaves had not yet been frost-cut, and great bur- 

 docks rosetted what had been the lawn. Shep- 

 herd's-purse, dandelion, wild carrot, plantain, but- 

 ton-weed, mustard, purslane — ^these and their 

 natural associates were playing the old game of 

 the survival of the fittest all about. Catnip was 

 everywhere, and of poison ivy there was more than 

 enough to fill an order my old nursery -friend Moon 

 once told me he had received from abroad for 

 "1,000 Rhus toxicodendron,^' 



In the early spring the war began, and it lasted 

 over several succeeding springs before I could 

 come to feel that I was acceptable in the evolu- 

 tionary sense, and was surviving over the weeds 

 because I was fittest to survive. There were many 

 separate engagements, for in a curious fashion, 

 one weed at a time would seem to come to the 

 front and especially dominate all the ground. Ruth- 

 less and repeated uprooting, mean and hazardous 

 to do, rapidly disposed of the poison ivy.* The 

 poke-weed, which has a deep, fleshy, crooked white 



*Just a word as to ivy poisoning, to those susceptible — as I am not. 

 Whatever be the treatment adopted, let it be preceded by a hard scrub- 

 bing of the affected places with hot water and laundry soap, applied with a 

 stiflit brush. This, if thoroughly done, tends to diminish the eruption and 

 especially to prevent the re-infection which otherwise does the most damage. 



