I just returned from a somewhat solitary, three-day road race that took me from the cotton fields of west Texas to the patchwork of farms and suburbia in Southern Lancaster County that I have called home all my life. In addition to chasing the pace car I had lots of time to look and think.

Two things caught my attention. First, I was surprised by the universality of the weeds along the way. There was a lot more variation in the desired plants than in the weeds. Our weeds are often their weeds.

Second, what I saw put in stark terms how much Southern Lancaster County has changed since I was a kid. Traveling much more than a thousand miles along the interstates from west Texas into Ohio I saw just two intrusions of suburbia into farm land.

According to the sign, one promised a development in southern Illinois. To date there were two houses built. The other one was in Ohio and was being worked quite actively. Every time I go west I am reminded of this area during my childhood.

It was really great to stop at a diner and see a lineup of pickups covered with a good coating of field dust and laden with feedbags and hay bales. It makes me wonder about the future. Are we as citizens, and are our elected officials, feeling the pulse of what is happening, or are we living with the romantic notion that we are and always will be an agricultural community?

Meanwhile, back with the weeds. The first thing I read after my return was an essay about the origin of weeds. I think you could make a strong case that most of our worst weeds were human induced.

Dandelions and many other problem weeds came to this country with the settlers to be used as a salad green. Weeds seem to thrive with cultivation and other agricultural practices. A lot of our grass-like weeds only flourished after the land was subjected to over-grazing.

Another practice in colonial times that brought us lots of European weed seeds was the shipping trade. The boats headed to Europe loaded with American raw materials and often returned carrying soil back as ballast. These weeds met no natural enemies and spread across the country with each swing of the farmer's hoe.

Even more fascinating is the fact that there are always plant collectors looking for plants with ornamental value. The early European collectors who came to this country were quick to take many of our native species back to European gardens. Once there, they were refined by breeding and selection. The net result is that a lot of cultivars of our native plants were developed in Europe and then reintroduced into this country.

I'll conclude without trying to define either a weed or a native plant.

The race. I was in a well-loaded small pickup truck. In the pace car were my daughter, son-in-law and Buddy, the beagle. The only victory I will claim is that they are now living an hour away instead of five days.