Weed

“ ABOUT WEEDS.
Somebody once characterised ‘dirt’ as matter in a wrong place. Now, a weed is a plant in the wrong place. It has a place in the economy of nature, no doubt, unprofitable or even noxious as it may appear to the farmer or gardener. It must not be forgotten, moreover, that even the humblest weed is worthy of patient examination, and is a marvel of physiological structure. Then, again, some of our hedgerow wildings vie in beauty of form and elegance of habit with the cherished garden plants. ”

“ By words I could no more give him an idea of what his mother
was than I could point him to a few measures of wheat and bid him
behold a living harvest.
Upon these fields of cool October greenness there risen out of the
earth a low, sturdy weed. Upon the top of this weed small white
blossoms open as still as stars of frost. Upon these blossoms lies a
fragrance so pure and wholesome that the searching sense is never
cloyed, never satisfied. Years after the blossoms are dried and yellow
and the leaves withered and gone, this wholesome fragrance lasts. ”

“ RATTLESNAKE-WEED.—H. venosum.
134If Emerson’s definition of a weed, as a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered, be correct, we can hardly place the dandelion in that category, for its young sprouts have been valued as a pot-herb, its fresh leaves enjoyed as a salad, and its dried roots used as a substitute for coffee in various countries and ages. It is said that the Apache Indians so greatly relish it as food, that they scour the country for many days in order to procure enough to appease their appetites, and that the quantity consumed by one individual exceeds belief. ”

“ The seeds of naturalized plants seem, in many cases, to have floated across our lake upon the water; for we have found the European mint and catnip growing with the blue gentian immediately on the banks where the woods spread around in every direction for some distance.
The word weed varies much with circumstances; at times, we even apply it to the beautiful flower or the useful herb. A plant may be a weed, because it is noxious, or fetid, or unsightly, or troublesome, but it is rare indeed that all these faults are united in one individual of the vegetable race. ”

“ It was the wrecked weed that concerned him most, rock-weed, kelp, and sea-weed, as he named them, which he carted to his barn-yard; and those bodies were to him but other weeds which the tide cast up, but which were of no use to him. ”

“ While to flower lovers this may appear to be the most beautiful species of the family, it is the most heartily detested weed with which the farmer has to contend. It is very prolific, and each individual plant strikes its roots deep into the ground, as though determined to defy extermination. The fully-opened flower clusters have an exquisite, lace-like appearance, while those half-opened are hollowed suggestively like a bird’s nest ”

“ If fortune frowns he may lessen his crop but never his attachment for the plant. Amid all the cares and perplexities incident to life, he puffs away and as the ashes drop from his cigar meditates upon the probable future of tobacco growers and all users of the weed. ”

“ Far through the ever-varying surface of the curious gelatinous liquid breaks the phosphorescence, sprinkled into innumerable lights and cross-lights. As you look upon those endless pastures thought is quickened with the conception of their innumerable phases of vitality. The floating weed, whose meshes measure the spaces of continents and archipelagoes, is everywhere instinct with animal and vegetable life. ”

“ He hath a large handful of the precious weed which we use for our pipes in one of his cheeks, and his hair is hanging behind, down to his waist, in a rolled up mass, as thick as the arm of your slave. ”

“ The periwinkle, the primrose and the mallow—we spare them with our tongue as with our hoe. This, perhaps, suggests the only definition of a weed that is possible. A weed is a plant we hoe up or, rather, that we try to hoe up. A flower or a vegetable is a plant that the hoe deliberately misses. But, in spite of the hoe, the weeds have it. They survive and multiply like a subject race.... Well, perhaps better a weed than a geranium.
XXI A JUROR IN WAITING The train was crowded with jurymen. ”

“ I have a large heart in regard to things that grow, and many a weed that would not be tolerated anywhere else is allowed to live and multiply undisturbed in my garden. They are such pretty things, some of them, such charmingly audacious things, and it is so particularly nice of them to do all their growing, and flowering, and seed-bearing without any help or any encouragement. I admit I feel vexed if they are so officious as to push up among my tea roses and pansies, and I also prefer my paths without them ”

“ What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered,—every one of the two hundred thousand probably yet to be of utility in the arts. ”

“ A weed shouldn’t come near him, nor slug, nor snail neither, if I knew it, but I’d cover him over, and shelter him from all frosts, and then watch him grow and grow in the light and warmth of God’s beautiful sunshine. ”

“ The busy farmer’s wife as she goes to the wood pile for an armful of wood can quickly pick off a spray of May weed, dropping it into a tin of cold water as she passes the water pail, and her platter of beans for dinner is transformed, in the eyes of those children, into a thing of beauty, and what effect may it not have in the formation of their characters? ”

“ The weed to which I refer is one of those curious plants, which, from their peculiar structure, are unable to draw their nourishment directly from the earth, but are obliged to feed themselves by sucking the juices of other plants, and thus destroying them, or weakening them so greatly as to prevent their producing a crop that will repay the cultivator for his labour and expense. ”

“ There is scarcely a vegetable on the face of the earth more really nauseous and filthy in taste and the effects of use, than tobacco, and yet hundreds and thousands of the most fertile acres of our country are devoted to the cultivation of this noxious weed, which is good for none, but injurious to many, where millions of bushels of nutritive grain might be raised. ”

“ How came such an unpromising weed to exercise such an immense interest on human affairs?—and is its influence for good or for evil?—are questions of importance which have never yet been satisfactorily settled. ”

“ They are those who have had to do with the making of the history of the weed whose cousins are the thorn-apple, and the night-shade, from the time its existence came to be known to the civilized nations. ”

“ It is entirely true that a weed is a plant that has got into a wrong place; but it never seems to have occurred to Aunt Judy that some plants never do!
Who ever saw a wood anemone or a heath blossom in the wrong place? Who ever saw nettle or hemlock in a right one? And yet, the difference between flower and weed, (I use, for convenience sake, these words in their [108] familiar opposition,) certainly does not consist merely in the flowers being innocent, and the weed stinging and venomous. We do not call the nightshade a weed in our hedges, nor the scarlet agaric in our woods. ”

“ The seed of some hedgerow weed, as it becomes loosened from its attachment upon the lifeless mother-plant, and is blown for rods or even miles over the surface of the incrusted snow, is a familiar and perhaps striking example that may enforce the meaning to be here conveyed. ”

“ The new arrival of a weed of first rank stimulates watchfulness. (Russian thistle.)
3. In occupying the soil after a crop has been removed they prevent the loss of fertility by shading the ground.
4. Weeds plowed under add some humus and fertility to the soil, though in a very much less degree than clover or cow peas.
5. Some of them furnish food for birds in winter.
[Pg 105]
WHAT ENABLES A PLANT TO BECOME A WEED.
1. Sometimes by producing an enormous number of weeds. (A large plant of purslane, 1,250,000 seeds; a patch of daisy fleabane, 3,000 to a square inch.) ”

“ Paradoxical as it may seem, the weed is the best friend the farmer has because it compels him to cultivate his land in order to exterminate the intruder. Cultivation keeps the soil open to air and moisture and conserves the latter. It is best, therefore, to go over lightly with a hoe the day after a heavy rain or a good watering.
The time to weed is before you see the weeds, but if they do appear, don't run away from them. When none are in sight, the chances are that upon microscopic examination, a velvety fuzz of green would be discovered. ”

“ A large part of the weeds incident to a garden will also be consumed if pulled and offered them, thus minimizing the weed growth for the coming year, as every weed consumed means just so many less to appear the following year. ”

“ It is, like the poor, always with us. But the very weeds we have been so persistently abusing may be brought into our service to overcome it. Watch a mass of floating weed that is about to be carried over the position [42] of your fish, throw your fly so that the gut lies on the advancing weed; the fly, with some inches of free gut, should rest upon the water in front of the weed; the rest of your cast, being supported by the weed, will be freed from the drag of the stream, and the fly will float proudly over the fish. ”

“ A few, not content with the compound already described, absolutely mix tobacco, previously reduced to a coarse powder, by rubbing the dried leaves with the thumb in the hollow of the other hand! One would think that ‘potent weed’ must supersede all its companions, and cause them to be as little tasted, as though they had not been crowded into the jumble of flavors. ”

“ The tea weed (sometimes styled a plant, because it also grows under cultivation) produces leaves, which are dried and rolled, and then treated with fire, using an appropriate instrument, by which the infusion is imbibed. The effect upon many persons is to cheer; but it impairs the sleep of others. ”

“ These noxious plants have come unbidden to us, with the grains and grasses of the Old World, the evil with the good, as usual in this world of probation—the wheat and tares together. The useful plants produce a tenfold blessing upon the labour of man, but the weed is also there, ever accompanying his steps, to teach him a lesson of humility. Certain plants of this nature—the dock, thistle, nettle, &c., &c.—are known to attach themselves especially to the path of man ”

“ Sometimes it is found with beans, peas, and vetches, and, indeed, it may be said to be a common weed in some districts in any crop from which it has not been eradicated by the hoe—an operation almost impossible in grain, as its growth is so much like that of the crop itself. ”

“ And the great task, to try, then know, the good.
To discern weeds, and judge of wholesome food,
[246] Is a rare, scant performance: for man dies
Oft ere 'tis done, while the bee feeds and flies.
But you were all choice flow'rs, all set and drest
By old sage florists, who well knew the best:
And I amidst you all am turned a weed! ”

“ There are a few weeds, like Canada thistle and quack-grass, that may infest any crop of farm or garden, but in most cases, whether to call a weed very bad depends on the nature of the crop grown, the size of the weed-seeds and their time of ripening.
Some weeds have a very wide distribution, thriving all around the world in temperate climates, while others are more limited in range; some thrive only in dry, thin, sandy soil and others in wet soils. ”

“ This we have attempted in England too, even in the place where I live, but the obstinate and unmerciful weed did so confound them, that it was impossible to keep them clean with any ordinary industry, and so they were given over: It seems either weeds grow not so fast in other countries, or that the people (which I rather think) are more patient and laborious. ”

“ After the tobacco is cut, they weed and clean the ground on which it grew: each root then puts out several suckers, which are all pulled off, and only one of the best is left to grow, of which the same care is taken as of the first crop. ”

“ Not a weed will appear during the whole season, but it would do your eyes good to see the strong, stout, tender stalks of the vegetable itself, pushing through the surface. I do not at all stretch a point when I say that they are often as large round as my hoe handle, and as tender and succulent as any I ever tasted. ”

“ It is a more or less common weed, to be found about gardens and barn-yards, where it covers the fences with its profuse, clambering growth, its stalks everywhere entangled or drawn close to support by their [191] long, green, spiral springs, and its free, branching, young tendril tips reaching out in all directions for fresh foothold, and in its absence content at length with a friendly intertwining among themselves, and a consequent tangle of green convolutions. ”

“ Neither is our labour at an end when we have cut down some weed as soon as it sprung up, corrected some violent and dangerous accident of a disease which would have destroyed speedily, nor when we have pulled up that weed from the very root, recovered entirely and soundly from that particular disease ”

“ A weed is really a plant growing where we don't want it. The worst weed in a hill of four corn stalks is the fourth stalk of corn that crowds the others. The worst weeds in a row of beets are the little beet plants that crowd each other. ”

“ Persistently and constantly weed them out and cultivate the soil. Clean cultivation is the only sort for good crops and freedom from weeds.
"Weeds, as flowers, drop in the three classes of annuals, biennials and perennials. Any annual is easy enough to hold down. Just pull such weeds up. Some merely cut the weed off at the surface of the ground, but it is a better way to be rid of the thing entirely. And should you not be quite sure of the kind of weed, then pulling up is the only really safe plan. ”