length and breadth of the land, should be
reckoned otherwise than among the original
inhabitants of it; and it is only by noticing
the changes in vegetation which cultivation
has wrought in other countries within the
memory of man, that we are enabled to
understand what has occurred in our own. A
brief glance at the history of American weeds
will tend to make this plain, and, at the
same time, present some interesting details.

As far back as 1672, in a curious little
volume called New England's Rarities, we
have a list of twenty-two plants which, the
author considered had " sprung up since
the English planted and kept cattle in
New England;" besides several others,
referred to in other parts of the book, which
owe their origin to the same cause. Among
them he mentions the plantain, "which
the Indians call Englishman's foot, as
though produced by their treading." This
is one of the species which always
accompanies cultivation. Independently of
these casual introductions, we have
records of plants which have been introduced
to America either for ornament or use, or
by accident, and have not only thoroughly
established themselves, but have become
noxious weeds, and serious hindrances to
agriculture. For an example of the first
class, we may refer to the common yellow
toad-flax, which was originally introduced
to the United States as a garden flower by
a Mr. Ranstead, a Welsh resident in
Philadelphia, from whom it has taken the name
of Ranstead-weed. The following account
of the position it had attained in
Pennsylvania, as long ago as 1758, will
show to what an extent it had even then
spread. "It is the most hurtful plant to
our pastures that can grow in our northern
climate. Neither the spade, plough, nor
hoe can eradicate it when it is spread in
a pasture. Every little fibre that is left
will soon increase prodigiously; nay, some
people have rolled great heaps of logs
upon it, and burnt them to ashes, whereby
the earth was burnt half a foot deep, yet it
put up again as fresh as ever, covering the
ground so close as not to let any grass
grow amongst it; and the cattle can't
abide it. But it doth not injure corn so
much as grass, because the plough cuts off
the stalks, and it doth not grow so high
before harvest as to choke the corn. It is
now spread over a great part of the
inhabited parts of Pennsylvania. It was
first introduced as a fine garden flower, but
never was a plant more he.irtily cursed by
those that suffer from its encroachments."

It is worthy of note that in our own
country, where it is native, this toad-flax is
almost entirely restricted to hedge-banks
and borders of fields, and seldom, if ever,
becomes a troublesome weed. Our common
chickweed, which was introduced into Carolina
as food for canary-birds, spread in ten
years upwards of fifty miles, and is now one
of the plants which occupy the outposts of
civilisation. As an accidental introduction,
we may name the Scottish thistle, which is
said to have been brought to America by a
Scottish minister, who brought with him a
bed stuffed with thistle-down, in which
some seed still remained. Feathers being
plentiful, the down was soon turned out,
and the former were substituted, and the
seed, coming up, filled that part of the
country with thistles. Another account
tells us that the thistle was introduced by
some enthusiastic Scot, anxious to bear with
him the emblem of his country, which soon
made itself at home, and became a nuisance.
At the present day, it is an actionable
offence in New Zealand to allow thistles to
grow or to run to seed; and a case was
lately reported in which action was taken
against a landed proprietor who had not
taken sufficient precaution to prevent their
growth, the verdict being given for the
plaintiff.

In 1837, one hundred and thirty-seven
weeds, nearly all of them English, were
more or less established in the United
States; and now no less than two hundred
and fourteen, similarly introduced, are
enumerated by Dr. Asa Gray as occurring
there. This will give an idea of the
rapidity with which these introductions take
place. It is not now our purpose to pursue
the subject furthei", or we might produce
examples, still more striking, of the
spread of introduced weeds in Australia
and New Zealand.

In conclusion, just a word may be said
on the rapidity with which weeds increase.
We are familiar with the proverb which
tells us that " ill weeds grows apace;" but
we scarcely realise, perhaps, how
enormously they multiply: " the worst of
creatures fastest propagate." When we
know that a single plant of groundsel may
produce one hundred and thirty flowers,
each in turn developing fifty seeds; of
chickweed, five hundred flowers, each with
ten seeds; and of shepherd's-purse, one
hundred and fifty flowers, each having
thirty seeds, and that there might, without
difficulty, be four or five crops of each of
these during the year, we may see how true