Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 41.djvu/240

228 for by transcontinental tourists in parlor cars. "Weeds," Burroughs says, "are great travelers. . . . They are going east and west, north and south, they walk, they fly, they swim. . . . They go under ground and they go 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 off, but on the public road every boy, every passing herd of sheep or cows, gives them a lift." They love the half-earnest tiller of the soil, and will crowd around his barns and dwelling, and flourish in his garden and fields so long as he favors them with slight attention to his crops.

The fact is patent that weeds are everywhere, and the best means need to be taken to resist their greater prevalence. In this warfare against them there is no weapon equal to a thorough knowledge of the enemy that is, an understanding of the nature of these pests, their appearance in all stages of growth, methods of propagation, and dissemination of the seeds. This knowledge is much more highly appreciated in Europe than here. In Germany, for example, they have wall maps upon which the leading weeds are represented. Hung as these are upon the school-room walls, a child, simply from daily seeing these life-like colored drawings of the various pests, will learn their appearance and names. Some such method of instruction is needed in this country, by which the children who are soon to be our farmers and gardeners may become familiar with the troublesome weeds even in advance of their advent, that the proper means may be taken at once for meeting and destroying them. Editors of agricultural papers and professors in agricultural colleges yearly receive many letters asking for the simplest kind of information concerning many common weeds, thus showing the general lack of knowledge upon this important subject. To put a map of a dozen of the most destructive weeds upon the walls of every country school-house in the United States is a great undertaking; but if it were done, the next and succeeding generations of farmers would be the better able to carry on the work of extermination. There are a large number of farmers' clubs throughout the country, and a great deal might be done by hanging a weed chart upon the walls of these halls where farmers gather from time to time for mutual improvement and a better understanding of the ways and means of a more profitable agriculture.

Weeds have been neglected in more ways than one, and just so far as they are overlooked and left to themselves the greater will be the curse. As one looks over the premium lists of our thousands of county and State fairs one seldom sees a prize offered for the best collection of weeds. It seems incompatible with our fitness of things to have a good collection of anything that is bad;