Vetch

     This dainty vine is growing wild along the creek.  It will grow in thick piles all over the grass and make the landscape lush looking. 

 

   

 

 

 

      The dark green leaves are a nice background to the little flowers that line the tiny stem.  You will see the bees and ants come to visit.  It will make a nice addition to the bouquet as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 






 "An Intoxicating Plant"  

 


"There is a fine moral in the following newspaper paragraph:-  

"In Texas there abounds a dangerous weed which farmers and stock raisers are doing their best to exterminate. It is the Lathyrus cicera, a low creeping vetch, known as the "loco plant" in its native habitat. Horses and cattle are extremely fond of this herb, and seek it out and devour it with the avidity with which men take alcohol or opium. Its effect is to befuddle the animals which eat it, and if they consume it in any quantity they not only become intoxicated, but mad. A doctor, who has made a study of the symptoms of "loco" poisoning, says the prominent ones are due to a loss of muscular co-ordination. The animals become weak and staggering, and a slight blow on the head would be sufficient to cause one affected by the poison to rear and fall over backwards. There is also considerable loss of flesh, the coat loses its natural bright shiny appearance, and the hair becomes rough and of a dirty colour. The brain, as well as the spinal cord in some cases, seems to be affected, and the animals become perfectly crazy. Man, we are sometimes told, is the only animal that gets drunk, but horses and cattle do the same, it seems, when they have the opportunity.  

The poor beasts, like many men, have not the power or the inclination to resist an appetite that is so perverted by the narcotic or stimulant that no healthful food can supply the demand. But why do not the stock-raisers make provision to grow this herb and supply it in moderate quantities to the stock? Simply because they know that things of this nature, which produce such results when taken in quantities, are harmful in whatever proportion they are taken. The real food does not enslave the appetite. Stock-raisers prefer to supply the horses and cattle with food; and, as they raise them for profit, they try to exterminate the weed described. Amongst men we find the use of stimulants and opiates producing exactly similar effects, and yet there are encouragements offered to the traffickers in these things that ruin men's bodies, as the Texan weed ruins the bodies of the cattle. And although souls are lost in the indulgence of perverted taste, even some well-intentioned people apologise for the moderate use of intoxicants, thinking they can stop short of injury to health. It is coming to be recognised more and more generally that they cannot begin without injury to health."




 July 19, 1894 EJW, PTUK 454