Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1920-07-06
AMONG THE FARMERS.
SPEED THE r1oiw.r

Speed THE PLow."
Weeds.
1.-THE battle with weeds is now on"
said farmer, land 1t is some battle"
The present season of 1920 is q late
one, so hoeing and hsying are somewhat
mixed. There are plenty of farmers fin-
ishing their hoeing this week instead OF
beginning their haying according to the
unwritten law of the section,-"the
Monday after the Fourth"
II q man is given to philosophy he has
considerable material spread out before
him as he wages war upon one or two
varieties of the plant kingdom and spares
another. The kinds he wages war upon
are weeds, while those be spares are
called by another name. Sometimes it
is hard to determine why one kind Of
plant is priced and cultivated and an.
other is despised and neglected, and even
warred upon.
A botanist some years ago, came to
the, conclusion he had discovered the
degenerate parent of maize down In Cen.
tral America. What he discovered was
not much more than grain or weed.
The question was to make sure 1t was
the parent, 80 he tried the Darwinian
prooess-that is, took the perfected
grain away from Its environment, neg
lected 1t, abused 1t and returned 1t to
the condition Of It's original ancestor.
1t took seventeen years to do this. The
corn one so carefully tends is what 1t Is
because of environment, because of care,
because of ooddling. It simply follows
a universal law of life, even as the
humans who do the coddling. A man is
what he inherits plus bis environment,
and so Is q plant.
II cultivst0r should get foolish, crazy
or cranky, hoe up bis corn and let the
barn grass and pig weeds grow, who
knows what be could make of them?
A weed then is plant which has lost
it's reputation, or never bad one. Should
the reader doubt this, he can be referred
10 the field daley.
The daisy was once an aristocrat and
fourished in my lady's garden. That is
how she (such pretty thing suppose
is q she) came to America; but she
threw caution to winds, did not practice
birth control, and there soon was too
many of Der. Her descendants overran
the flower garden and were pushed out
into the fields and pastures. They be-
came mob. So thick and white are
they in June and July that one might
easily think the earth had been caught
in q summer blizzard.
A mob, however, don't count for
much except on rare occasions. When
human mob gets too big, kings and
rulers stir up war and 1t grows small
or. That is just what is done in the
case Of daisies.
As is said above, there are occasions
when mob counts. When there is Q
war there must be q mob to follow q
general; when there is an grafton there
must be mob to listen. So with the
daisy. There are times when its mum.
bers count-generally for decorations
If the sweet girl graduate or q bride
wants white floral background, what
go easy to construct 1t with as daisiesp
They can be had anywhere. Yet there
Is sometimes shortage OF such COM
mon things as daisies. There was this
year-at least in the month of June
Vegetation did not get an early start in
the year of our Lord 1920. Winter lay
In the lap Of spring after she should have
gone to the undertaken, and her oaress
was cold-the kiss of death; so the
dsises did not show green until June
and not white until July. This inter-
fered with established institutions. AT
Vasssr College commencement week,
the girls have daisy chain ceremony.
A daisy chain Is shout the easiest thing
that can be made in June, because the
fields are white with them; but this
year there could be no chain because
there were no daisies.
There are 80 many daisies they cannot
be wholly ignored and never have been.
Three hundred years ago Shakespeare
saw them and wrote:
"When daisies pied and violets blue,
And lady.smocks all silver white,
And cuckoo.buds Of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight"
What the immortal William saw was
probably not our kind of daisies; neither
were those with which Goethe's Mar
guerite told her fortune; but they show
what can be done with such a common
thing, when master hand takes hold of
| them.
DaisieS invade the hay fields to such
an extent they are harvested with the
hay and form part Of the diet of COVE.
Whether they have food value must be
left to chemists to say; but, without
doubt, they are bitter enough for tonic,
which may add an appetite for other
foods and ip this way assist in the pro-
duction. of milk or flesh.
There is another naturalized immi-
grant from Europe which overruns hay
fields and adds bitter element to the
crop-the buttercup.
The dandelion does not invade fields
10 the same way az daisies and butter.
cups but-t overruns lawns and gardens.
It~is q vegetable dog and has gone
wherever man has gone. Some way 1t
has knsok of invading the packing
material of merchandise, and when 1t
once gets q hold "heavens and yarth"
can't make 1t let 60. 1t is the original
aviator and with Its seed. balloon can
make a peaceful penetration most any
where.
Should one ask the farmer, he would
propably answer that any kind Of old
weed can make peaceful penetration,
and after the penetration there comes
the war of determination; and that war
Is 80 strenuous be has no time for q
philosophical disquisition; and II he did
have time, he does not care a-weli, q
rap for It.
AQUARIUs.
Raised In Oxford County.
Twenty-Five towns in Oxford County
have reported the acreage OF crops plant.
ed for the present year to the Depart
ment Of Agriculture. From this report
1t can be learned that some 2200 acres oi
oorp havo haon olo N rod for vortoua MIR