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Show What Is a Weed? The simplest definition of a weed is "a plant out of place," and the inhuman inhu-man scientist may be satisfied with that disposition of the lovely mountain laurel or the aristocratic rhododendron, rhododen-dron, where great specimens of either stand in the way of a road or a building. build-ing. I think I may construct my own definition of a weed as, in the first place, a plant of persistent and spreading spread-ing growth that is not sufficiently beautiful in foliage or flower to commend com-mend it for its own sake, or as a plant attractive in itself that tends to possess pos-sess the land of the exclusion of all else. Thus the ox-dyed daisy is a weed, even though it is beautiful, because be-cause it spreads persistently, so that whole fields on the careless farm wave with its flowers, justifying the gibe of Dr. Bailey of Cornell, who said, when passing such a display, "That man is not a farmer; he's a florist." The same Dr. Bailey's definition of a weed as "A plant not wanted" is simple and true. Countryside Magazine. |