108 
RURAL HOURS. 
used for ages by the goodwives of England and Holland, were early 
brouglit over, and have very generally become naturalized, — 
catnip, mint, horehound, tansy, balm, comfrey, elecampane, &c., 
(fee, — immediately take root, spreading far and wide wherever 
they are allowed to grow. It is surprising how soon they become 
firmly established in a new settlement ; we often observe them in 
this new county apart from any dwellmg. At times we have 
found them nearly a mile from either garden or house. The 
seeds of naturalized plants seem, in many cases, to have floated 
across our lake upon the water ; for we have found the European 
mint and catnip growing with the blue gentian immediately on 
the banks where the woods spread around in every direction for 
some distance. 
The word weed varies much with circumstances ; at times, we 
even apply it to the beautiful flower or the useful herb. A plant 
may be a weed, because it is noxious, or fetid, or unsightly, or 
troublesome, but it is rare indeed that all these faults are united 
in one individual of the vegetable race. Often the unsightly, 
or fetid, or even the poisonous plant, is useful, or it may be in- 
teresting from some peculiarity ; and on the other hand, many 
others, troublesome from their numbers, bear pleasing flowers, 
taken singly. Upon the whole, it is not so much a natural de- 
fect which marks the weed, as a certain impertinent, intrusive 
character in these plants ; a want of modesty, a habit of shoving 
themselves forward upon ground where they are not needed, root- 
ing themselves in soil intended for better things, for plants more 
useful, more fragrant, or more beautiful. Thus the corn-cockle 
beai^ a fine flower, not unlike the mullein-pink of the garden, but 
then it springs up among the precious wheat, taking the place 
