90 



to start another crop as a second planting, and still others may 

 serve as a third or fourth planting. In case all the seeds were 

 favorably exposed when fresh, most of them, possibly all, would 

 germinate. After they had been buried twenty years or more a 

 variable number of seedlings appeared of the following species: 

 Our most common prickly pig weed, mustard, shepherd's purse, 

 pepper grass, mayweed, common mallow, evening primrose, 

 smartweed, purslane, narrow leaved dock, a chickweed, the 

 blanket-leaf mullein — twelve in all out of the twenty-one species 

 buried. If any additional lesson were needed regarding the cost 

 of growing a crop of weeds — of permitting weeds to get a start 

 —here it is. If the earth is once well seeded and a man begins at 

 once to keep each weed from going to seed, he will not kill the 

 last seedling of the old crop inside of twenty years or more." 



PROPERTIES OF GERANIUM ROOTS. 

 Species of Crane's-bills growing in Europe and Asia have been 

 known from remote times to possess medicinal virtues. Diosco- 

 rides mentions a plant called geranion as employed for its astrin- 

 gent properties, and Pliny alludes to two species which were 

 known in his time. 



The root of the Herb Robert ( Geranium Roberiianum) was 

 formerly much used in European medicine for fever, consumption 

 and jaundice, and externally as a resolvent. The herb is now 

 almost entirely neglected. In many parts of the United States 

 the root of G. maculatum is esteemed as one of the best indigenous 

 astringents, and is included in the National Dispensatory. It is 

 said to be free from the unpleasant taste and odor of the common 

 European species of Crane's-bill. 



Dr. Edward Staples in 1829 found the American drug to 

 contain tannic and gallic acids and a red coloring matter. Messrs. 

 Trimble and Peacock in 1891 again examined several samples of 

 the fresh and dried rhizome and found gallotannic acid to occur 

 to the extent of 3.2 to 6.7 per cent, in the fresh, and 9.7 to 27. S 

 per cent, in the absolutely dry drug. This principle is present in 



