BY THE WAYSIDE 
11 
famine in the course of twenty-five years. 
Even the people who are not thoughtful 
stop and think a moment when they are 
obliged to buy a little lumber, for the 
prices charged for it now are two or three 
times what they used to be. Besides 
the harm done by fires and by wasteful 
cutting, the forests that are left are being 
destroyed by the attacks of borers which 
kill the trees and so lessen the supply of 
lumber. 
Every farmer knows that one of his 
chief labors when his crops are growing 
in summer is fighting weeds, either with 
hoe or cultivator. Weeds grow from 
seeds, and presumably the more seeds the 
farmer can destroy the fewer weeds he is 
likely to have to fight. It is known that 
sparrows of all sorts for food depend 
largely on the seeds of various weeds, and 
while the food of the individual sparrow 
may perhaps amount to no more than a 
quarter of an ounce of seeds each day, 
yet these birds are so numerous that it 
has been figured by an elaborate calcu¬ 
lation that in 1906 the sparrows of the 
countrv saved the farmers $35,000,000, 
merely by their destruction of weed seeds. 
The most useful aids to the farmer in 
destroying the hordes of small rodents 
: that prey upon his crop, his fruit trees 
and the contents of his house and barn 
are the hawks and owls, whose food these 
mammals are. These birds are striving 
: lay and night the whole year around to 
capture this food. How enormouslv 
i valuable to man are the services of these 
hawks and owls has been pointed out 
many times by experts who have stud¬ 
ied their food, and mav be seen even bv 
a non-expert, who will take the trouble 
to pull to pieces one of the pellets of un¬ 
digested material disgorged by owl or 
hawk, and will notice what it consists of. 
He will find that it is made up of the fur, 
Continued on page 12. 
NATURE STUDY DEPARTMENT 
Weeds. 
[Teachers of Nature Study, pupils and 
subscribers to the Wayside are invited to 
write out this lesson and send it to the 
author in care of the editor.] 
What is a weed? Plants, like animals, 
may be either friends or foes to man. 
Name a plant that is troublesome; one 
that is harmful. Why? Name a pois¬ 
onous plant. Name a plant that has an 
attractive flower and yet is called a weed. 
Explain. What can you say of the vigor 
of weeds as compared with cultivated 
plants? of their ability to withstand un¬ 
favorable conditions, as drought and cold? 
Many of our most troublesome weeds, as 
the Russian thistle, have been introduced 
here from other countries. What does 
this illustrate as to their character? What 
can you say of their powers of multipli¬ 
cation? Give several examples of devices 
for getting their seeds scattered. Give 
illustrations of two ways in which weeds 
protect themselves from animals. 
Weeds, from an economic standpoint, 
are classed as annuals,biennials, and per¬ 
ennials. What do these terms mean? 
Give illustrations. Which kind is hard¬ 
est to get rid of? Can weeds spread by 
any other means than by seeds? What 
are the different means of destroying 
them? Are there laws aimed at the de¬ 
struction of weeds? What birds eat great 
numbers of weed seeds? At what time 
of year do they do most service? 
The composite family contains more 
weeds than any other family of flowering 
plants. This is also the largest family, 
owing its success to the ability to produce 
an immense number of flowers and to 
scatter them widely. The dandelion is 
a good illustration; the so-called “flower” 
is really a closely packed head of tiny 
flowers. Give examples of weeds that are 
composites. 
Collect and make a study of any ten 
weeds in the region. Make an outline 
drawing of the leaf of each. How are 
its seeds scattered? State for each whether 
it is an annual, biennial or perennial .and 
how it can best be eradicated, Add any 
other notes that may be necessary for the 
identification of the plant. 
R. M. 
