Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1891 — An Unpopular Plant. [ARTICLE]

An Unpopular Plant.

New York Tribune. “There is,” says a horticulturist, “hardly an instance in natural history of a plant so universally detested by"the animat world as the castor oil plant. No sort of bird, beast or creeping thing will touch a castoroil plant. It seems to be rank poison to all the animal world. Even a goat will starve before biting off a leaf, and a horse will sniff at it and turn up bis upper lip as though it had the most detestable odor on the face of the earth. Army worms and locusts will pass it by, though they may eat every other green thing in sight, and there is no surer way to drive moles away from a lawn than to plant a few castor beans here and there. tobacco worm will refuse to be fed on the leaves.”