As I had never studied the botanical peculiarities of weeds, and, indeed, had no time for scientific study, having both needle and garden on my hands, I regarded their luxuriant growth in my strawberry-ground only in a strictly practical light. The soil was full of nutriment, as my father had left it very rich. If this nutriment were appropriated by the weeds, it would obviously be so much taken from the strawberries. The latter, moreover, when the fruit was swelling to full size, preparatory to changing color, required all the moisture they could obtain. Now weeds are powerful leeches. Whatever they might suck up would consequently be robbery of the strawberries. Thus as nutriment and moisture would fail the strawberries in exact proportion to the growth of the weeds, the fruit would be small in size and inferior in quality, with a corresponding diminution of the market price. In a dry season these effects would be particularly disastrous. These conditions of successful strawberry-culture I had learned from books, from reflection, and from actual experience. Hence my beds were made scrupulously clean and mellow when the plants were beginning to put forth runners. It was a troublesome matter, for some weeks, to keep them in complete order, requiring an hour or two of hoeing daily; but then I found the labor of weeding lasted only during August, as after that month the growth had so fallen off as to be of little consequence. Scarcely any that started subsequently would find the season long enough to mature the seeds. I frequently managed to obtain a glimpse of what our neighbors were doing, to see how my strawberry-culture compared with theirs. Though the whole family had little else to do than to look after their acre, yet I was quite satisfied with the result of my survey. They had quite as many weeds as myself, with the important difference that they did not seem to mind much about getting rid of them. I presume their uniform success had made them careless and lazy. Their hopes had been fulfilled, while the consummation of mine was yet in the future.