The Writings of John Burroughs — Volume 05: PepactonBurroughs, John
History
The Writings of John Burroughs — Volume 05: Pepacton
Burroughs, John
Natural history -- Outdoor books
sings Whittier. In Europe our goldenrod is cultivated in the flower
gardens, as well it may be. The native species is found mainly in
woods, and is much less showy than ours.
Our milkweed is tenacious of life; its roots lie deep, as if to get
away from the plow, but it seldom infests cultivated crops. Then
its stalk is so full of milk and its pod so full of silk that one
cannot but ascribe good intentions to it, if it does sometimes
overrun the meadow.
"In dusty pods the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun,"
sings "H. H." in her "September."
Of our ragweed not much can be set down that is complimentary,
except that its name in the botany is AMBROSIA, food of the gods.
It must be the food of the gods if anything, for, so far as I have
observed, nothing terrestrial eats it, not even billy-goats. (Yet
a correspondent writes me that in Kentucky the cattle eat it when
hard-pressed, and that a certain old farmer there, one season when
the hay crop failed, cut and harvested tons of it for his stock in
winter. It is said that the milk and butter made from such hay are
not at all suggestive of the traditional Ambrosia!) It is the bane
of asthmatic patients, but the gardener makes short work of it. It
is about the only one of our weeds that follows the plow and the
harrow, and, except that it is easily destroyed, I should suspect
it to be an immigrant from the Old World. Our fleabane is a
troublesome weed at times, but good husbandry has little to dread
from it.
But all the other outlaws of the farm and garden come to us from
over seas; and what a long list it is:--
Common thistle,
Canada thistle,
Burdock,
Yellow dock,
Wild carrot,
Ox-eye daisy,
Chamomile,
Mullein,
Dead-nettle (LAMIUM),
Hemp nettle (GALEOPSIS),
Elecampane,
Plantain,
Motherwort,
Stramonium,
Catnip,
Blue-weed,
Stick-seed,
Hound 's-tongue,
Henbane,
Pigweed,
Quitch grass,
Gill,
Nightshade,
Buttercup,
Dandelion,
Wild mustard,
Shepherd's purse,
St. John's-wort
Chickweed,
Purslane,
Mallow,
Darnel,
Poison hemlock,
Hop-clover,
Yarrow,
Wild radish,
Wild parsnip,
Chicory,
Live-forever,
Toad-flax,
Sheep-sorrel,
Mayweed,
and others less noxious. To offset this list we have given Europe
the vilest of all weeds, a parasite that sucks up human blood,
tobacco. Now if they catch the Colorado beetle of us, it will go
far toward paying them off for the rats and the mice, and for other
pests in our houses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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