WEEDS. 
109 
of the grain, and it is a weed ; the flower of the thistle is hand- 
some in itself, but it is useless, and it pushes forward in throngs 
by the way-side until we are weary of seeing it, and everybody 
makes war upon it ; the common St. John's wort, again, has a 
pretty yellow blossom, and it has its uses also as a simple, but it 
is injurious to the cattle, and yet it is so obstinately tenacious of 
a place among the grasses, that it is found in every meadow, and 
we quarrel with it as a weed. 
These noxious plants have come unbidden to us, with the grains 
and grasses of the Old World, the evil with the good, as usual 
in this world of probation — the wheat and tares together. The 
useful plants produce a tenfold blessing upon the labor of man, 
but the weed is also there, ever accompanying his steps, to teach 
him a lesson of humility. Certain plants of this nature — the 
dock, thistle, nettle, &c., &c. — are known to attach themselves 
especially to the path of man ; in widely dift'erent soils and cli- 
mates, they are still found at his door. Patient care and toil can 
alone keep the evil within bounds, and it seems doubtful whether 
it lies within the reach of human means entirely to remove from 
the face of the earth one single plant of this peculiar nature, much 
less all their varieties. Has any one, even of the more noxious 
sorts, ever been utterly destroyed? Agriculture, with all the 
pride and power of science now at her command, has apparently 
accomplished but httle in this way. Egypt and China are said to 
be countries in which weeds are comparatively rare ; both regions 
have long been in a high state of cultivation, filled to overflowing 
with a hungry population, which neglects scarce a rood of the soil, 
and yet even in those lands, even upon the banks of the Nile, where 
the crops succeed each other without any interval throughout the 
