The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1881-08-19

About Noxious Weeds.
WEEDS are plants out of their proper
place, and we may add, as q mater of
experience, s'away from home, - because
the most troublesome weeds with which
our farmers and gardeners have to con-
tend are not indigenous to North Amer
ice, but have been introduced from other
countries. This fact alone shows how
wide OF the mark is the often-repeated
assertion that plants do best in their
native country, and when removed
therefrOm are likely to degenerate or run
out. 1t is doubtless true that there is a
principle of adaptation of plants to eli
mate and soil, which underlies all sue
cessful agriculture and horticulture; but
this is seldom discovered except through
experience, theories often leading the
cultivatOr astray in such matters.
Plants may succeed in their native
habitats, and still do far better in for
eign country. In the case of plants termed
weeds they seem to thrive best when
away from home, as the cultivators of
the soil in this country have learned to
their cost. Our native plants seldom
invade the grain fields or gardens, but
1t is the introduced plants which become
great pests. For instance, the so-called
Canada thistle is not q native of Canada
or of North America, but was introduced
from Europe, where it has long been
known as great pest, and Linnaeus OBJ
serves in sFlora Lapponica," sit is the
greatest pest of our fields" a remark
which is equally applicable to it in this
country at the present day. In Europe
it is called the cursed thistle, q name
which has been corrupted by the farm
ers of the United States into Canada
thistle, although there is no proof even
of its having reached our fields by the
way of Canada. The common long
leaved thistle of our fields and roadsides,
as well as the yellow thistle and cotton
thistle, are all introduced weeds, and we
do not know of a native species that has
in cultivated fields or gardens.
The great ox-eye daisy, which of late
years has spread over the Middle and
Northern States, much to the injury of
the hay crop, is q native of the Old
World, and probably first introduced
with grass seed or grain. 1t has now
become q great pest, and is 80 widely
distributed that it will probably remain
with US to the end of time, as it seems
to take very kindly to all kinds of soils,
as well as to our variable climate. It is
q weed readily controlled in cultivated
fields, but the seeds are so widely dis
fv~Sh Int A - ~,
hay, that the farmer and gardener who
purchase manure from the stables of
cities and villages are sure to restock
their fields with the pest, no matter how
careful they may be in destroying the
plants as they appear from year to year.
OF all the weed pests infesting the
fields and gardens of the Northern
States, not five in q hundred are native,
and of the few supposed to be indigo
nous we seldom hear much complaint.
The common burdock, groundsel, pars-
ley, dandelion, wild carrot, and scores
of other similar species of garden and
field pests are all natives of Europe,
where they do not thrive any better if as
well as in this country. Chess, or cheat.
which SO many farmers believe is kind
of transformed wheat, is also foreign
grass, infesting the grain fields in all
European countries. Going further
south, we find different kinds of weeds,
some of which have not yet become
common in the more northern States;
but here again we find that the most trou-
blesome species have been introduced,
and are not indigenous. The vile weed
known as "blue devils,' which has
overrun 50 many hundreds of acres
of the fertile lands of the Shenandoah
Valley in Virginia, is the viper's bugloss
of Europe, from which it was introduced
in some unknown manner many years
ago, and permitted to spread over some
of the finest portions of the Old Domin-
ion. It has also obtained good foot
hold in Maryland, and we have found
occasional patches of it as far north as
central Vermont. 1t is q pity that such
pests should be permitted to spread, when
they could be so readily destroyed on
their first appearance in our fields, gar
dens, and roadsides.
Europe, however, has not been the
only country from whence we have re-
ceived noxious weeds, for the so-called
Jamestown weed or thorn-apple is sup
posed to be a native of Asia but it found
its way to this country more than CEN
fury ago, and is now thoroughly natu-
rallied. 1t is very coarse, poisonous
weed, and ought to be extirpated before
it becomes more abundant than at pres
emit. The horse nettle of the South is
perhaps an exception to the general rule
that noxious weeds are ''plants away
from home," because, according to our
oldest botanical authorities, this prickly
customer is a native of the Carolinas,
whence its scientific name of Solonuns
Carolinense. It is pernicious weed,
and so tenacious of life as to be very
difficult to eradicate when once in pos
session of field but it does not appear
to thrive in the more northern States,
although it is very plentiful in some
parts of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and
Maryland.
How to destroy weeds is the great
question with every cultivator of the
soil; for if it was not for these pests
would hox