s come; the coast is clear;"
and they are up and doing in a twinkling.

Weeds are great travelers; they are, indeed, the tramps of the
vegetable world. They are going east, west, north, south; they walk;
they fly; they swim; they steal a ride; they travel by rail, by flood,
by wind; they go under ground, and they go above, across lots, and by
the highway. But, like other tramps, they find it safest by the
highway: in the fields they are intercepted and cut off; but on the
public road, every boy, every passing drove of sheep or cows, gives
them a lift. Hence the incursion of a new weed is generally first
noticed along the highway or the railroad. In Orange County I saw from
the car window a field overrun with what I took to be the branching
white mullein. Gray says it is found in Pennsylvania and at the head
of Oneida Lake. Doubtless it had come by rail from one place or the
other. Our botanist says of the bladder campion, a species of pink,
that it has been naturalized around Boston; but it is now much farther
west, and I know fields along the Hudson overrun with it. Streams and
watercourses are the natural highway of the weeds. Some years ago, and
by some means or other, the viper's bugloss, or blueweed, which is
said to be a troublesome weed in Virginia, effected a lodgment near
the head of the Esopus Creek, a tributary of the Hudson. From this
point it has made its way down the stream, overrunning its banks and
invading meadows and cultivated fields, and proving a serious obstacle
to the farmer. All the gravelly, sandy margins and islands of the
Esopus, sometimes acres in extent, are in June and July blue with it,
and rye and oats and grass in the near fields find it a serious
competitor for possession of the soil. It has gone down the Hudson,
and is appearing in the fields along its shores. The tides carry it up
the mouths of the streams where it takes root; the winds, or the
birds, or other agencies, in time give it another lift, so that it is
slowly but surely making its way inland. The bugloss belongs to what
may be called beautiful weeds, despite its rough and bristly stalk.
Its flowers are deep violet-blue, the stamens exserted, as the
botanists say, that is, projected beyond the mouth of the corolla,
with showy red anthers. This bit of red, mingling with the blue of the
corolla, gives a very rich, warm purple hue to the flower, that is
especially pleasing at a little distance. The best thing I know about
this