372 Agricultural Weeds. 
surface, thus causing; new plants to be multiplied in a rapid and 
insidious manner. Others stool out, forming fresh buds or stolons 
around the parent-stem, thus in a single year leaving many shoots 
where there was but one in its early growth, and this stooling is 
only aggravated if we should carelessly cut off the crowns of the 
plants, inasmuch as new heads shoot forth, as seen in the dande- 
lion, hardhead, burdock, succory, and others. 
Habit of Growth. — Of course the duration of plants is part of 
their habit of growth, properly so called, but here we confine the 
term to those modes of growth, whether of the stems or roots, 
which would tend to separate them into different groups having 
distinct agricultural peculiarities. Upon this principle the weeds 
in our Table have been noted under the following heads : — 
a. Plants of an upright habit of growth, mostly annual weeds, 
possessing fibrous roots. 
h. Plants of a runninrj habit, either simply lying prostrate 
upon the surface of the soil, occupying much room, or rooting 
their prostrate branches, and thus forming scions. 
c. Plants which climb around or cling to other plants, thus 
suffocating, strangling, or otherwise impeding their proper 
growth. 
d. Plants with large underground stems or deep roots, forming 
a more or less permanent growtli for the sending forth of future 
buds, all below the ground, being commonly perennial, though 
for the most part bearing annual stems and herbage. 
e. Parasitic plants ; those whicli, having no proper roots of 
their own, live entirely on the juices of others. 
In speaking generally of the above divisions, It may safely l)e 
concluded that it is highly important in the study of weeds to 
examine not only that part which grows above the surface, but 
the facts connected with those parts which penetrate the soil ; 
for while some weeds may at once be destroyed by the simple 
process of hoeing, others have only their crowns partially in- 
jured, which does not destroy the plant, while some are in this 
way divided into several independent individuals. 
As respects climbing plants, it should be borne in mind that 
of this small list most are annual, and as they impede the growth 
of plants by twisting their flexile arms around them, or holding on 
by their hooks or tendrils, as in the tares, twining buckwheat, and 
bedstraws or cleavers, they should be destroyed before they grow 
to any height, which may generally be done in the usual pro- 
cess of lioeing, as they are fibrous-rooted annuals. But there are 
some twining weeds, especially the bindweeds, that have perennial 
underground stems, and, as these run deep into the soil, it is out 
