Cooper's Clarksburg register. [volume] (Clarksburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1851-1861, 1852-12-22
rr'sGlnrksburg Reglster
FORMIDABLE LOSSES.


Every famer who understands common
arithmetic. may amuse and instruct him
self with great advantage by few inter-
esting calculations. Successful tillage as
every one knows consists in three important
particulars, namely, a good soil-litsi fer
tility made accessibly; and entire mono
poly of that fertility by the crop intended
A soil may consist oil the most valuable
ingredients, but if these are kept INNER
sed in u subterranean basin of water, as in
many undrained soils during every wet
season, they are as inaccessible to the
plant. as il encased in walls of masonry.
A hard, uncrumbled soil is little better.
But the greatest absurdity in farming IS
to exnend FIVE or ten thousand dollars In
the purchase of land, some hundreds
more in fitting it for prolific crops. and then
permitting one fourth, one-third or even
one-half its costly value to be drawn out
and destroyed by the growth of useless
weeds! rast
We have known men who were exceed
ingly jealous of '' their rights" Rather
than be defrauded of u half dollar, they
would rush into lawsuit costing twenty
timts that sum. Rather than lose ''the
best end ola bargain" they would resort
to a great many very inconvenIent and
troublesome expedients. Rather than
submit to furnish neighbours iawiess hog
with single meal of undug potatoes, they
would incur perpetual resentment. But
strange things have not come to an end,
for these are the very same men that sub
NIT with most admirable patience to the in
vasion and waste of thousands of elder
bushes and bur-docks, tens of thousands
of mullins and horse-thistles, and hun
dred thousand Canada ttistlcs, and q mil
lion red-root plants.
Now, the calculations we are about to
propose, as above alluded to, are these ::
Let every landowner, whose fences are
lined with belt of elders, bur-ducks, and
bTiers, ascertain by weighing, the precise
amount of vegetable growth yielded by
these three plants on a square yard OF
land multiplying by thirty will give the
weight on square rod. Then let him make
a fair estimate of the amount ofland thus
occupied along all the miles of his fence,
and he may soon know how many tons of
elder bushes, briers and bur-docks, his
costly land grows in a year. 1t would of
course be quite as well for him to have
this growth in clover, timothy, or Indian
corn-but before throwing the calculation
aside, let him ask himself, ifhe would not
feel somewhat indignant should his neigh
boris cattle fall upon and devour an equal
number of tons from his meadow or corn
field. Now, cannot he contriye to get up
like amount of Indignation against the
weeds? The same kind of calculation
may be applied on the same farm, to the
Canada thistles, horse-thistles, Johns
worth, pig weeds. mullins, mustard and
fox-tail grass which grows in various de-
grees of denseness broadcast over the
fields. We cannot but think that on some
farms it would present rather startling
results.
1t would be an interesting inquiry to
look into the actual losses sustained
through the whole country by the growth
of weeds. How many tons on an average
are grown by the each of the million far
mers of the United States? Three-fve
or ten? If the former only, the aggre-
gate would be enough to load a continued
train of farm wagons, three thousand miles
long-or more than ten times all the
whale ships belonging to the country,
with this useless heritage. A single weed
the red root-has been estimated to
have occasioned greater loss in some coun-
ties than if every dwelling house had been
destroyed by fire. Is not the subject
worthy some attention?
Now, there are two ways in which all
this evil comes upon US. The first is by
the increase of seeds the second, the
want Of prompt destruction when once the
evil has commenced. The increase OF
seeds, under favorable circumstances, al
most exceeds belief. We have counted
the grains ON moderate sized plant OF
chess, and found over three thousand
An equal increase the second year would
produce nine millions the third year,
twenty-seven thousand millions the 4th
but we will let some of our young arith-
metical readers extend the calculation for
ten years, and see if there is not enough
seed by that time to turn the whole wheat
crop of the world to chess. A full-grown
adult pig-weed will yield eight thousand
seeds-which may increase in few years
to countless myriads, Just because, as
Prof. Lindley says, the cultivator was un-
willing to make q a single fexure of his
vertebral column" in extracting the first
young weed from the soil. There are GER
tain weeds, troublesome and costly in the
highest degree in same regions of country,
which are entirely unknown in others
simply because no seeds have ever been
deposited there. Then again there are
other localities which were once plentiful,
ly infested, which have been completely
eradlcated, and not single representative
lett. We could name several farmers who
have succeeded in driving from both soil
and seed, the last vestige Of that insilious
intruder, chess; and several others who
by vigilance and industry, have exceed
lngly iessened the annual wedding of red
root. Such examples are worthy of imi-
tation : and at the present SEASON ,rhan