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The Musk Thistle l. ■ j >. , 7 ■ “Perhaps you don’t realize how much things have
changed*” he said. “No probably not,” we replied. “You
take a farmer,” he said, “think he owns his farm? Let him
try to plaht it in wheat. He’ll see who owns it. Or take me,
'My father would have had a fit if someone even peeked inr...
■ to his checkbook. Now I’ve got to open a full record of all
- my business to any young mah that comes along and say3
he is from the Internal Revenue Service, or with State Income Tax, or is a Social Security man. Think of itr the law
says any of those people has a’right to check me and every transaction^ enter-in to. I don’t own anything. I’m in partnership
with the government 4hat’s all. And they’re mighty
burdensome partners, I can tell you.!’ - . ’
. We thought of it, but didn’t seem to get anywhere so we ventured to ask, “What can be done about it?” “You’ve got to fight them, resist them,” he snapped back, “Just don’t give in an inch.” ■
Wo parted company; but as we walked down the street his words lingered in our minds. We continued to muse over the radical change in the cpncept of property ownership, buck in our office. As we thumbed through the Acts of the General Assembly, our eyes lighted on this startling passage on page 281 of the Acts: “It shall be unlawful for any person.to allow, within this state the coninuing growth of musk thistle upon his .premises. Any such thistle, when growing in this state, is hereby declared a public nuisance and a noxious weea.It shall Be the duty of the owner of any lands upon which there is a growth of to “do so by the State entomologist... Any person ....who musk thistle to destroy the same as soon as he is directed shall obstruct or hinder the State entomologist....shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor....” •
' • ' » ; } • 'a1 4 I Up to this point we never had much of fen opinion of' thistles, musk or otherwise, However, all of a sudden we find ourselves, becoming very fond of our musk thistles. You might .even say we became attached to our musk thistles. And we in no way appreciated the general assembly in Richmond declaring our new found personal property a public nuisance and a noxious weed. With deep resolve we. decided nO more thistles would be cut this year on our farm unless, of course, the general assembly wished to enforce its own law. The prospect of a Delegate or two, even a Senator grubbing musk thistles would be too good to pass up, property rights or no. BCBjr.
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