A foolish young heir came into the possesion of his wise father's estate. After the funeral and when his inheiritance was secured, the young man ordered the (USDA) employees to cut down all of the hedges that surrounded the vineyard. When the employees begged to dissuade him from that course of action, he shouted "Why should they not be grubbed up?! They bear no grapes, they occupy good land, and they yeild no harvest. Grub up the hedges and brambles and burn them!" So the employees torn down the hedges and the vineyard was opened up- to the ravages of and and beast (and topsoil loss due to wash off and wind erosion!), and it was not long before all the vines were destroyed. And thus the fellow learned a lesson too late: you cant expect grapes to grow from brambles, yet it as important to protect ones vineyard as to possess it. This is kinda close to home on several fronts, you think about agriculture and the way it is carried out today, the gov and us being the young heirs, perhaps the natives of this country as the wise father. And the noxious weeds program, of which we have been hearing dribs and drabs.

-- Kevin in NC (Vantravlrs@aol.com), April 11, 2002

Answers

Great srory kevin, we visited a organic farm a month ago and two things he said stand out. They were having a problem growing things when they first moved there so they planted tree wind brakes and found that the trees caught spiders and ladybugs going by and lured them to the farm. Also they pulled out all the star thisle except one patch and discovered that the artichokes in that patch had no worms [ the worms liked the star thistle better]. Now they plant a italian thistle with thorns to atract the worms to there and away from there cash crop artichokes.

-- kathy h (ckhart55@earthlink.net), April 12, 2002.