Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1875-05-07
When to Kill Canada Thistles.

We have had for the last half century nu-
merous infalible directions for destroying
Canada thistles, some easy of application,
others difficult, but we do not see that the
thistles have disappeared from the face Of
the earth. On the contrary they appear to
be increasing, diffusing themselves over wild
er tracts, following in the wake Of migra.
tion, and taking root on the fertile fields Of
the West.
We used to wonder, when we read in the
advertising columns Of newspapers the nu-
merous certain, infalliblc remedies for all the
diseases that mortal man is heir to, that
there should any longer be sickness and
death among mankind, when few bottles of
some panacea would restore them to vigor-
Gus health and strength; but we learned, as
we grew older, that the cure.alls" were not
all reliable, although certified to by many
who had been raised from the brink of the
grave by taking few bottles or boxes.
We have come to believe that the best
way for the sick to regain their health is to
return to obedience to the laws and condi-
tions Of health to partake in moderation of
wholesome food to keep the body clean and
pure; to inhale the invigorating atmos-
phere, and to indulge in free aud moderate
exercise.
There may be some way, some process,
concealed from man by nature, by which
these weed enemies may be overcome and
subdued by strategy without going through
the slow and toilsome process of a siege, or
without making strong and vigorous as
sault on the citadel Of their strength, but we
doubt it. We think the only certain way of
exterminating Canada thistles is either to
turn up aud expose the roots to the action of
sun and wind until they are all withered, or
to cut down the tops so frequently that the
roots die of suffocation.
We used to hear, in our younger days,
that some men always succeeded in killing
them by moving them on certain days of the
three summer months, or at certain phases Of
the moon, but somehow they failed to con.
vince their ueighbors of the potency of their
remedies, for the Canadas continued to -four
ish, and spread in that section.
A gentleman of this city called in our Of
fee few days since and said that he used
to work farm in the town of lrondequoit,
in this county, aud that he noticed that
while the farm which he worked was covered
with thistles, the adjoining one, owned by
Mr.. Jennings, was entirely free from them.
Upon inquiring, Mr. Jennings informed him
that he destroyed his by moving them, once,
in the dark of the moon, in either of the
summer months. BY the dark of the moon,
we understand about the time of new moon,
when it gives the least light. Our inform.
ant had tried Mr.. Jennings plan and found
it good.
The number of those who conform in their
time Of doing different kinds of work to GER
tain periods or phases of the moon is happily
growing less and less, before the spread of
scientific knowledge, yet there are those re-
naming who assert that doing certain kinds
Of work in certain periods of the moon has,
in their experience, produced better results
than doing it at other times. We do not
question their statements of facts, but think
they attribute results to wrong causes. Pos
sessed with the notion that the moon has