A: The western prairies, except in the very center of the Mississippi
Valley, are beautifully rolling, and they meet every stream with deeply
carved bluffs. In the early days every stream was fringed with woods;
and prairie and woodland, alike, knew nothing beyond the evenly balanced
contest of indigenous life. There came, however, a succession of strange
epidemics, as one after another of our noxious weeds gained foothold in
that fertile land. I remember well several years when dog-fennel grew
in every nook and corner of my home town in Kansas; then, after a few
years, a variety of thistle grew to the exclusion of every other
uncultivated thing; and then followed a curious epidemic of tumble-weed,
a low spreading annual which broke off at the ground in the Fall and
was rolled across the open country in countless millions by the Autumn
winds. I remember well my first lone "beggar louse," and how pretty I
thought it was! And my first dandelion, and of that I have never changed
my opinion!