Excerpt from Transactions of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, for the Year 1905, Vol. 1 Many plants at the time Of their first introduction into America seem harmless and unlikely to cause trouble but after a period of acclimatization on the dumping grounds or in the undisturbed fence corners they suddenly reach a period of active reproduction, and in their offspring the aggressive qualities which class them as weeds are suddenly developed. Thus in 1863 a few plants of rape (brassica campestris) were known to occur at Buffalo, but as late as 1882 the species though persisting was barely established. In 1887, however, it began to be troublesome in fields of central and western New York, and in 1888 it was common on dumps and rubbish heaps in eastern Massachusetts. Then it suddenly appeared as a weed of grain fields and other cultivated grounds throughout New England and eastern Canada where it is still a common nuisance. The blueweed or viper's bugloss (echium vulgare) was known as an occasional waif on dumps or by neglected roadsides for nearly fifty years before it began, within the last quarter-century, to take a strong foothold in dry fields and cultivated land through eastern New York and New England. On the other hand, some plants, which, in the past, have borne hard reputations, seem to have run their course and to have set tled to a less aggressive mode of hfe. The henbane (hyoscyamus niger), a disagreeably sticky and ill-smelling weed, which early Massachusetts botanists considered common, has now practically vanished from the New England flora, though it is abundant in eastern Quebec. Indeed, there seems good reason to assert that even the prickly lettuce (lactuca scariola, var. Integrata), which for years has been the bete noir of the western farmers, is now on the wane. But even though we may hope that all the weeds which are brought to us from foreign lands will eventually become as innocuous as the once common henbane, the prospect of waiting for 600 species and their successors to run their full course is not a pleasing one; and some energetic methods must be employed to check the progress of new weeds. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.