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

its economic uses with the ancients.
The Greeks made lamp-wicks of its
| dried leaves, and the Romans dipped
its dried stalk in tallow for funeral
torches. 1t affects dry uplands in this
country, and, as it takes two years to
mature, it is not a troublesome weed in
cultivated crops. The first year it sits
low upon the ground in its coarse flan-
mel leaves and makes ready; if the plow
comes along now its career is ended;
| the second season it starts upward its
tall stalk, which in late summer is
thickly set with small yellow flowers,
and in fall is charged with myriads
of fine black seeds. ..As full as dry
MULLEN stalk of seeds" is almost equiv
alent to saying, "as numerous as the
sands upon the sea-shore."
Perhaps tie most notable thing about
the weeds that have come to us from
the Old World, when compared with
our native species, is their persistence,
not to say pugnacity. They fight for the
soil; they plant colonies here and there
and will not be rooted out. Our native
weeds are for the most part shy and
harmless, and retreat before cultiva-
ton, but the European outlaws follow
man like vermin; they hang to his coat
skirts, his sheep transport them in their
wool, his cow and horse in tail and
name. As have before said, it is as
with the rats and mice. The American
rat is in the woods and is rarely seen
even by woodmen, and the native mouse
barely hoyers upon the outskirts of CIV
ilization; while the Old World species
defy our traps and our poison, and have
usurped the land. So with the weeds.
Take the thistles, orinstance; the COM
mon and abundant one everywhere, in
fields and along highways, is the Eu-
-ropean species, while the native thistle
is much more shy, and is not at all
troublesome; indeed, / am not certain
that have ever seen it. The Canada
thistle, too, which came to us by way of
Canada, what pest, what usurper,
what a defer of the plow and the har-
row! 1 know of but one effectual way
to treat it: to put on pair of buckskin
gloves, and pull up every plant that
shows itself; this will effect a radical
cure in two summer. Of course the
plow or the scythe. if rot allowed to
rest more than a month at q time, will
finally conquer it.
Or take the common st. John s-wort
(Hypericuna rfo-atttni), how has it es-
tablished itself in our fields, and become
a most pernicious weed, very difficult
to extirpate, while the native species
are quite rare, and seldom or never in.
wade cultivated fields, being found
mostly in wet and rocky waste places.
OF Old World origin, too, is the curled
leaf-dock (Rumer Crispus) that is so
annoying about ones garden and home
meadows, its long tapering root cling
ing to the soil with such tenacity that
have pulled upon it till could see
stars without budging it; it has more
lives than a cat, making shift to live
when pulled up and laid on top of the
ground in the burning summer sun.
Our native docks are mostly found in
swamps, or near them, and are harm
less.
Purslane, commonly called "pusley,"t
and which has given rise to the saying
las mean as pusley''-of course is not
American. A good sample of our ma
tive purslane is the Claytonia, or spring
beauty, shy, delicate plant that opens
its rose. colored flowers in the most sun
ny places in the woods or along their bor-
ders, so early in the season.
There are few more obnoxious weeds
in cultivated ground than sheep sorrel,
also an Old World plant, while our ma
tive wood-sorrel, with its white, deli
cately-veined flowers, or the variety
with yellow flowers, is quite harmless.
The same is true of the mallow, the
vetch, or tare, and other plants.
The European weeds are sophistica-
ted, domesticated, civilized; they have
been to school to man for many hum
dred years and they have learned to
thrive upon him; their struggle for ex-
istence has been sharp and protracted;
it has made them hardy and prolific;
they will thrive in q lean soil, or they
will wax strong in a rich one; in all
cases they follow man and profit by
him. Our native weeds, on the other
hand, are furtive and retiring; they flee
before the plow and the scythe, and
hide in corners and remote waste
places. Will they, too, in time, change
their habits in this re,pectP
"Idle weeds are fast in growth"
says Shakspere, but that depends wheth-
er the competition is sharp and clcse
If the weed finds itself distanced, or
pitted against great odds, it grows more
slowly and is of diminished stature, but
let it once get the upper hand and see
what strides it makes Red-root will
grow four or five feet high, if it has
chance, or it will content itself with
few inches and mature its seeds almost
upon the ground.
Many of our worst weeds are plants
that have escaped from cultivation, as
the wild radish, which is troublesome in
parts of New England, the wild carrot,
which infests the fields in Eastern New
York, and live-forever, which thrives'
and multiplies under the plow and hsr-
row. In my section an annoying weed
is A6utiion, or velvet-leaf, also called
"old maid" which has fallen from the
grace of the garden and followed the
plow afield. 1t will manage to mature
its seeds if not allowed to start till mid
summer.
Weeds have this virtue: they are not
easily discouraged; they never lose
heart entirely; they die game. If they
cannot have the best they will take up
with the poorest; if fortune is unkind
to them to-day, they hope for better
luck tomorrow; if they cannot lord it
over a corn-hill, they will sit humbly at
its foot and accept what comes; in all
cases they make the most of their op-
portunities.-John Burroughs Notes
of q Walker" in Scribner's Monthly.