WEED. 
readily eaten by both hogs and cattle; young 
thistles, when partially dried, are readily eaten 
by horses and asses; wild mustard, wild radish, 
black mustard, and rape charlock, when drawn 
before they begin to form their seeds, are much 
relished by cows, and may even be made into 
hay; and several other of the most common and 
bulky weeds are more or less agreeable to farm 
stock, and, when allowed by neglect or oversight 
to grow in considerable quantity, and cut down 
in a succulent stage of their growth, may be pro- 
fitably sent to the forage department of the farm 
yard. Nettles, ferns, bulky hedge-weeds, and all 
other coarse, innutritious, or ligneous weeds may 
be collected for manure, and, according to con- 
venience and quantity, may either be burnt in 
heaps, with the view of only their ashes being 
| used, or placed in alternate layers with earth and 
lime in order to undergo slow and steady decom- 
position and to form a compost. In all cases, 
however, in which weeds are made to contribute 
| something by way of return to the soil, whether 
| by express use of them as manure ingredients, 
_ or by burning them in the course of summer fal- 
lowing, thorough care must be exercised to de- 
stroy all their seeds and vivacious roots. 
A theory has been got up by a few pseudo- 
scientific agriculturists, that the growth of weeds 
is beneficial to the cultivation of farm crops, and 
even essential to the maintenance of fertility in 
the soil; and this wild theory has been advocated 
in such strong terms as the following :—“ It is no 
less lamentable than true that, notwithstanding 
all the splendid talent which has been exhibited 
from Tull to the present day, this very obvious 
fact (that all natural vegetation enriches soil) 
should not have been long ago adopted as a fixed 
and leading principle in all agricultural and hor- 
ticultural operations. It stares us in the face 
in the forests and prairies of North America, the 
pampas of Buenos Ayres, the dirty summer fal- 
lows of England, and everywhere, and in every- 
thing. The principle of a clean naked fallow 
(fortunately a rare occurrence) is utter annihila- 
tion. Had farmers and gardeners been able to 
eradicate weeds, as they are called, the soil would 
have been a caput mortuum long ago. But weeds, 
like the principles of liberty, destroy, hack, hew, 
and persecute them as we may, rise again in due 
time, not to injure, but to fertilize and benefit. To 
the want of vegetable food is entirely to be attri- 
buted the frequent failure of grass, clover, tur- 
nips, sainfoin, &c., in England, under the im- 
proved system of farming; and the cleaner the 
land is kept, it is to be suspected, the more they 
fail. To say the land is tired, proves something is 
wrong, but explains nothing. We may be quite 
satisfied that the crops under the old wretched 
system of farming were much better than under 
the new, in proportion to the manures, skill, 
management, &c., applied in both instances. 
Weeds, misplaced except in summer fallows, 
were the old farmer’s salvation, but he did not 
649 
know it. Weeds do not rob the soil; they either 
enable the farmer to do so or prevent him, as 
the case may be; they keep up the fertility of 
it; they rob the crops, but not the soil.” This 
piece of declamation—for argument it is not— 
resembles the shovelling of a load of rubbish into 
a tilt cart ; and the last clause, by a single touch, 
tilts all back again to the ground. Since weeds 
“rob the crops,” who cares what else they may 
do? or what common sense farmer will not treat 
them as “robbers,” and kick them out and keep 
them out as well as he can? “Crops” are all 
a cultivator cares for,—the sole drift and object 
of all his labour; and whatever things “rob” 
them, be they vermin or plants, thieves or this- 
tles, are his enemies, and must be watched and 
opposed and driven from his farm; and it is just 
because intruding plants appear among his crops, 
and therefore rob them, that they are weeds at all. 
He wishes to appropriate all the available nutri- 
ment in a piece of land to the nourishment of 
crops which he expressly sows or plants upon it, 
—and he even puts a great deal of extra or arti- 
ficial nutriment into the land upon the nonce for 
the due or ample feeding of these crops; so that 
whatever other plants steal in among the crops, 
to live upon the land, and devour part of the 
nutriment, he regards as “ robbers” or ‘“‘ weeds,” 
—their mere presence there constituting them 
weeds, and their feeding and flourishing there 
constituting them robbers. Nor can he be re- 
conciled to them by the prospect of their being 
made by and by to disgorge what they devour, 
or of their dying on the spot where they lived, 
and bequeathing their carcases as payment for 
their food and lodging. Some are voracious 
eaters of the choicest and rarest ingredients of 
the food of the cultivated plants, and conse- 
quently reiving robbers and downright starvers 
of the crops; most appropriate much food at the 
moment, and also hinder the crops from getting 
ample air and sunshine for the enjoyment of the 
main body of the food, so that they considerably 
or largely defeat the objects for which the farmer 
tilled and fertilized and sowed; and all, before 
they can be made to give back to the soil what 
they take from it, give a great deal of trouble, 
compelling the farmer to spend upon the pun- 
ishment of robders what could be tenfold more 
profitably employed upon the nourishing and 
tending of productive plants. Crops and weeds, 
in fact, are antagonist things,—or at best, the 
same things in antagonist conditions. Crops 
are selected or improved plants raised on pre- 
pared ground, under the help of artificial appli- 
ances, with a view to a maximum produce; and, 
in so far as they either need or can receive as- 
sistance from other plants, they can economi- 
cally obtain it only on one or two or all of three 
antecedent principles of ordinary manure, green 
manure, and rotation of crops, and never on the 
absurd, starving, contemporaneous principle of 
sharing with them bed and board. Plants are 
