Withwind

He bare a burden ybound with a broad list, / In a withewyndes wise ybounden about.

In both barley and wheat, in the deep rich land, near Ilsley, in Oxfordshire, I observed, withwind with mighty grossness climbed up most of the halm to the top, no doubt, but to the prejudice of the corn in many respects, which must be eat up before harvest.

The increase of the withwind here was, without doubt, occasioned by the laying down this ground only to one summer-seed after the hop clover was sown, when it had borne three or four crops of summer corn after its wheat crop; for by the winter ploughings, the offsets of the roots of weeds, and their seeds, were propagated.

Years ago, when I began to garden among the squitch and the withwind, I considered them the primal enemies of mankind.