22 SEPTEMBER 1928, Page 13

OUR JACK HOAXERS.

The trouble is that we have become a community of" Jack Homers.' We have put in our thumbs and pulled out the plums'; and are entitled each of us to say, "What a good boy am I ! " Most unfortunately, the rest of the pie is pure waste. Never in my experience have weeds seeded so freely over such large expanses. I have walked over acres as white as an anemone underwood with the seed-heads off sow thistles or hawkweed. I have seen a dog nearly smothered by the seed of the big biennial thistle, which covered the soil with a carpet of thick down. Ragwort, once more or less rare in many districts, is now as common as its cousin the groundsel in our gardens. It is a directly poisonous as well as generally pernicious weed, though it provides an excellent dye.

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