150 
Mental Weeds of Agriculturists. 
Pennsylvania. The seed can be procured in 
small quantity, at a cheap rate, in almost 
every section of this country; and those 
who want it, need not pay, as I and several 
others have done, at the rate of several 
hundred dollars per bushel for it. 
I would not wish to be understood by this 
communication, to be desirous to lessen the 
interest that has been taken in this plant. 
On the contrary, I would increase it. It 
abounds throughout our country, let all who 
have it within reach try it, and let the results 
of their labor be published, that those who 
have it not, may be able to see whether or 
not it is worth gathering. 
Respectfully yours, 
Jersey Shore, Pa. ) J. H. Hepburn. 
July 16th, 1842. § 
We are obliged to Mr. H. for his prompt notice of 
the “ Bokhara 55 or “ Sweet Clover. 55 Those who are 
desirous of experimenting in the article, may save their 
<£ dollar for the 100 seeds” from the information commu¬ 
nicated above. This is a specimen of the economy of 
taking an agricultural paper. We believe it will prove 
a valuable acquisition to our hay crops for the purpose 
of mixing with coarse fodder, as directed in our last, in¬ 
dependent of its intrinsic value alone. 
The Weeds of Agriculturists. 
July 16th, 1842. 
Gent: —In looking over the last Cultivator, 
I perceive that one of their correspondents 
has commenced a series of communications 
which may prove very useful to our brethren 
everywhere. The design is to describe what 
he calls “ the weeds of agriculture ,” and to 
suggest the means of extirpation. 
This scheme has put a crotchet into my 
head, to try my hand at describing—not the 
weeds of agriculture , hut those of agricultur¬ 
ists ; for unless they can be first extirpated 
from our minds , it will be to little purpose for 
any one to tell us how we are to do with any 
of the kinds of weeds which infest our lands: 
the mental weeds will render all such infor¬ 
mation utterly useless. 
In executing my project, I will endeavor 
to put on, at least, the appearance of some 
classical learning, since it is so much the 
fashion with writers of the present day, even 
when they address persons who have not a 
particle of it; and I shall, therefore, give 
your readers at least one foreign-lingo name 
for every mental weed I attempt to describe. 
The first in my catalogue is Inscientia, —in 
plain English, ignorance, or want of know¬ 
ledge. Whilst this preoccupies the field of 
the mind, no really useful mental plant can 
take root or grow therein, any more than such 
plants as sustain animal life can flourish in a 
soil which is filled with weeds either utterly 
unfit to eat, or deadly poisonous. It produces 
intellectual blindness, a disrelish for all 
wholesome mental food, and an inability to 
distinguish the good from the bad. The me¬ 
thod of cure is: first, thoroughly to convince 
the sufferer of the true condition of his mind ; 
and then to inspire him with an anxious, 
abiding desire to cure himself. This is a 
most arduous task ; but one which must be 
undertaken by every intelligent farmer who 
sincerely desires to relieve from the curse of 
ignorance all such of his brethren as labor 
under it. 
The next weed in my catalogue is Perti - 
nacia , or, obstinacy. This almost always 
grows alongside the other, and is still harder 
to extirpate; for its roots are so strong and 
deep,'its branches so much upon the noli me 
tangere order, that the most skilful investiga¬ 
tor of such matters has never yet, I believe, 
discovered any method of rooting it out. 
Among the plants with which we agricultur¬ 
ists have most to do, there is not one that 
resembles it so much as our wheat when it 
takes what is called “ the studf and will move 
neither forward nor backward. The only 
chance of cure is, when it brings its victim 
into some intense suffering which forces 
upon him the conviction that it was caused 
solely by his persisting in some opinion or 
practice of his own, contrary to the opinions 
and practices of every body else. Even then, 
the relief (if any,) is but too often only tem¬ 
porary 5 for this weed seems, in some minds, 
to be as natural and ineradicable a growth 
as the next that I shall notice. This is 
Philantia , or, self-conceit; than which there 
is not, in the whole catalogue, a greater poi¬ 
soner of the mental soil, nor one that more 
unfits it for the reception of any good seed. 
In fact, it disdains and rejects all attempts 
to impart them ; for the sufferer from this 
cause, can hardly ever be made merely to 
suspect that he suffers at all; or that any one 
knows, or can possibly know, even half as 
much as he does, about any business in which 
he happens to be engaged. Nobody’s expe¬ 
rience but his own is worth a button to him ; 
he looks upon himself as “ omnibus imparf 
up to any thing he chooses to undertake, and 
far above being instructed either by men or 
books. That droll, quaint, and most amusing 
old writer. Burton, thus describes Philantia , 
in his “Anatomy of Melancholy — 
“ This pleasing humor,—this soft and whis¬ 
pering popular ayre, Amabilis insania ,—this 
delectable frensie, most irrefragable passion. 
Mentis gratissimus error ,—this acceptable dis« 
