In my section an annoying weed is abutilon, or velvet-leaf, also called "old maid," which has fallen from the grace of the garden and followed the plow afield. It will manage to mature its seeds if not allowed to start till midsummer. Of beautiful weeds quite a long list might be made without including any of the so-called wild flowers.

The stump was there, a bit lower and more worn at the crevices, leaking sawdust like an overloved doll but the low shrub had become a tall sapling, the weeds vervain, boneset, velvet-leaf all had been topped and killed off by dense-foliaged bushes and shrubs, which a year before had not raised a leaf above the meadow level.