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weeds only when they “rob” crops, or intrude 
upon them; and are not weeds at all where no 
crops are grown. There are no weeds in prairies 
and pampas and natural forests. Everything 
there luxuriates in wildness; and the most pow- 
erful plants take possession, and keep it, at the 
expense of the weaker; and any two or six or 
ten of similar strength, or co-ordinate habits, or 
tastes for different elements of food may exist 
together,—and die down in successive genera- 
tions only to enrich the land, with the help of 
exuvie and bird-droppings, and of ammoniacal 
rains and disintegrating action and chemical 
agency, for the use of sturdier and more stalwart 
future races. Nothing is removed from the land 
by human harvestings; and a perpetual fertili- 
zation is going on. Yet even on prairies and 
pampas and cleared natural forests, with a soil 
continually enriched and never once cropped 
during four thousand years, and possessing such 
a store of phosphatic, nitrogenous, and other rare 
saline principles as might grow thirty successive 
crops of wheat without aid from artificial man- 
uring, all the rank herbage must be cleared away 
and kept away in order to the obtaining of cul- 
tivated produce; and no man but an idiot or a 
maniac would, either with or without tillage, 
throw seed wheat upon them in expectation of 
getting the best possible crop of wheat in com- 
pany with their rankest possible growth of herb- 
age. When cultivation begins, wild vegetation 
must end; or when crops are at a maximum, 
weeds are at a minimum, Even too where cul- 
tivation was never attempted or has long been 
abandoned, and where natural vegetation has 
had as ample scope to do its utmost as on the 
richest of the prairies or pampas or natural for- 
ests of America, if the subsoil be not duly porous, 
and if the soil and the situation be either too 
moist or too dry, fertilization has its limits, and 
a very different process sets in. What shall be 
said of the bogs and morasses of Europe, the vast 
fens and savannahs of America, the moors and 
heaths and wilds of many famous old uplands of 
Asia, and the arid deserts and burning sands of 
Judea and Idumea and Mesopotamia? All these 
were once good and productive territories,— 
grateful to flocks or fit for the uses of the hus- 
bandman; and now, after revelling for centuries 
or millenniums amid all the glories which ‘ weeds’ 
or wild plants could give them, they are truly 
and all over one hideous caput mortuwm. We 
have somewhere said in some former article, and 
we here say again, that the man who imagines 
weeds to be beneficial to crops ought by all 
means to sow thistles and docks and to get them 
up into luxurianee, as the best possible prepara- 
tion for wheat. 
“All plants which grow naturally among a 
crop that has been sown,” remarks Sir John 
Sinclair, “may be regarded as enemies to that 
crop. The destruction of such plants, therefore, 
must be considered as one of the most important 
branches of the agricultural art; for if that is 
neglected, or even but slovenly performed, the 
crops may be reduced to the amount of one- 
fourth or one-third of a fair average crop, even 
upon the very best soils. Besides, it merits con- 
sideration, that if weeds are suffered to exist, 
the full advantages of manuring land, and many 
other improvements, can only be partially ob- 
tained. Nor is this all; the mixture of weeds 
in the soil prevents the crops from receiv- 
ing the beneficial influence of the atmosphere, 
—sucks up that moisture so essential for the 
growth of the crop sown,—tends more than any 
other circumstance to injure the crop when 
lodged by violent winds or heavy rains,—aug- 
ments the risks at harvest (for a crop that is 
clean, may be ready for the stack-yard in much 
less time than is required to harvest it, when 
encumbered with weeds),—and the seeds of these 
intruders deteriorate the quality of the grain. 
Notwithstanding all the injuries thence sus- 
tained, how many are there, who hardly ever 
attempt to remove weeds in an effectual manner? 
This negligence is the more to be blamed, be- 
cause, were farmers at the trouble of collecting 
all sorts of weeds, before they have formed their 
seeds, and of mixing them with rich earth, with 
lime, or fermenting them with dung, they would 
soon be reduced into a soft pulpy mass, and in 
this way, a pernicious nuisance might be con- 
verted into a valuable manure.—Various experi- 
ments have been tried, to ascertain the positive 
advantage derived from carefully weeding one 
part of a field, and leaving another part undone; 
among these, the following, made with peculiar 
accuracy, may be safely relied on:—l. Seven 
acres of light gravelly land were fallowed, and 
sown broad-cast ; one acre was measured off, and 
not a weed was pulled out of it; the other six 
were carefully weeded. The unweeded acre pro- 
duced 18 bushels; the six weeded acres, 135 
bushels, or 224 per acre, which is 43 bushels, or 
+ more produce in favour of weeding.—2. A six 
acre field was sown with barley, in fine tilth, and 
well manured. The weeding, owing to a great 
abundance of charlock, cost 12s. per acre. The 
produce of an unweeded acre was only 13 bush- 
els; of the weeded, 28. Difference in favour of 
weeding, 15 bushels per acre, besides the land 
being so much cleaner for succeeding crops.—3. 
Six acres sown with oats; one acre ploughed but 
once, and unmanured, produced only 17 bushels. 
Another six acres ploughed three times, man- 
ured, and weeded, produced 37 bushels. This 
experiment proves, that oats require good man- 
agement, and will pay for it as well as other 
crops. Ten bushels of the increased produce 
may be fairly attributed to the weeding; and 
the other ten to the manure.—The importance 
of weeding, both to the individual and to the 
public, is such, that it ought to be enforced by 
law. At any rate, a regulation of police, for fin- 
ing those who harbour weeds, the seeds of which 
