The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1880-05-27
WEEDS POLITICALLY CONSIDERED

1he walker makes the acquaintance
OF all the weeds. They are travellers
like himself, the tramps of the vege-
table world. They are going east, west,
north, south; they walk, they fly, they
swim, they steal ride, they travel by
rail, by flood, by wind; they go under
ground, and they 60 above, across lots
and by the highway. But, like other
tramps, they find it safest by
the highway; in the fields they
are intercepted and cut of, but on the
public road, every boy, every passing
her herd OF sheep or cows. gives them a
Ours is a weedy country because it is
margin, and they find it here. You
shall see more weeds in one DAYS travel
in this country than in a weeks Jour-
ney in Europe. Our culture of the soil
is not so close and thorough, our occu-
pancy not so entire and exclusive. The
weeds take up with the farmers leay-
ngs and find good fare. One may see
large slice taken from a field by ele-
camPane, or by teasle, or milk-weed;
whole acres given up to white-weed,
goiden-rod, wild carrots, or the ox-eye
daisy; meadows overrun with bear
weed, and sheep pastures nearly ruined
by st: John's-wort, or the Canada
thistle. Our farms are SO large and
our husbandry so loose that we do not
mind these things. By and by we shall
clean them out. Weeds seem to thrive
here as in no other country.
Is there not something in our soil and
climate exceptionally favorable to weeds
something harsh, ungenial, sharp
toothed that is akin to them? How
woody, and rank, and fibrous many va
rieties become, lasting the whole sea-
son, and standing up stark and stiff
through the deep winter snows-desic-
Gated, preserved by our dry air! DO
nettles and tbistles bite so sharply in
any other country? To know how
sharply they bite, of dry August or
September day. take turn at raking
and binding oats with a sprinkling of
blind nettles in them. A sprinkling of
wasps and hornets would not be much
worse.
Yet it is fact that all our more per-
nlclous weeds, like our vermin, are of
Old World origin. They hold up their
heads and assert themselves here, and
take their fill of riot and license; they
are avenged for their long years of re-
preston by the stern hand of European
the botanies was not aware to what
extent we were indebted to Europe for
these vegetable Ishmaelites. We have
hardly weed we can call our own; 1
recall but three that are at all noxious
or troublesome, viz: milk-wced, rag
weed and golden-rod; but who would
miss the latter from our fields and
highways? In Europe our golden-rod
is cultivated in the flower gardens, as
well it might be. The native species is
found mainly in woods, and is much less
snowy than ours.
Our milk-weed is to lacious of life; its
roots lie deep, as if to get away from
the plow, but it seldom infests cultivat-
ed crops. Then its stalk is so full of
milk and its pod so full of silk that one
cannot but ascribe good intentions to it,
If it does sometimes over-run the
meadow.
OF our rag-weed not much can be set
down that is complimentary, except that
its name in the botany is Ambrosia,
food of the gods. 1t must be the food
of the gods If of anything. for, so far as
1 have observed, nothing terrestrial
eats it, not even billy-goats. Asthmatic
people dread it, and the gardener makes
short work of it. 1t is about the only
one of our weeds that follows the plow
and the harrow. and, except that it is
easily destroyed, would suspect it to
be an immigrant from the Old World.
Our fleabane is a troublesome weed at
times, but good husbandry makes short
work Of it.
But all the other outlaws of the farm
and garden come to us from over seas;
and what a long list it is:
The common thistle, Nightshade,