The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-08-06
Weeds.

weed in every respect. But how strange
it is that farmers who will agree per-
fectly in this view as regards the wheat
or the potato, will not only permit
pumpkins and beans to grow with their
corn, but actually deceive themselves
into the belief that they are gaining an
advantage over g Dame Nature on the
sly. "The stars keep not their motion
in one sphere" nor can two masses of
matter occupy the same place, and
without dividing the fertility of the soil.
between them. And so plant, what
ever it may be, that is out of place is a
weed, and purloins from the crop a
certain quantity of its nutriment for ev-
cry leaf that it produces. Weeds
abound everywhere. They are so COM
mon that a man too often believes them
to be q necessary evil and one that he
fights against in vain. There are per-
sons who assume that weeds are q sort
of human birthright, one of the troubles
that man is born TO, and that they must
be accepted as an inevitable inheritance
left us by our first parent, Adam, and
all through his fall from grace. Taking
this view of it, they come to think thatlt
is useless to expect and vain to try to
get the better of them, and look for
ward to the time when the soil will be
free of them. But this is an unreasona-
bic view to take of it, even in TINS ngnV,
for if weeds come upon us as an Inherit
ed punishment for wrong-doing there is
no reason why we ought not to take our
share of it, "cash down." as it were,
pay up, and have done with it, instead
of meeting it in annual installments.
We know there is very prevalent
idea that it is hopeless to expect to clear
farm or a garden of weeds, or even to
approach so near to it that the labor
will be lightened to any considerable ex-
tent. But we have good reason to be
sure of the contrary. Five years. con-
slant work in garden of over two
acres, which was unusually weedy at the
beginning of that period, has so reduced
the weeds that the crops have to be cul-
tivated for the sake of keeping the soil
loose and mellow, and not that the weeds
may be kept down. On the farm the
same result has been reached, to q less
extent, however, but there are no new
weeds to be killed in some of the fields,
because every year no weed goes to
seed and the stock is diminishing. So
that the cheerful hope may be held out
that if few years. work is devoted to
this object one may bring his land to
such condition of cleanliness that it
may seem to justify the remark of a
hired man who was ordered to cultivate
a field of corn. "What that corn?
why, there's not weed in it. That
don't want hoeing."
And this leads us to remark that weeds,
like all other things, good or bad, have
their uses. They are not altogether bad !;
for, in the first place, if they did not ex-
ist as a constant threat to the farmer
some fields and some crops would suffer
for want of working the soil. We do
not properly realize the fact that ''til-
lage is manure;" that to work the soil
is to draw upon generous nature for a
bountiful supply of fertility, and that
the more the soil is turned and mellowed
of the sun and the "sweet inf1uences''
of the stars, by which the rich dews are
brought to refresh and feed the soil
during the cool hours of the star-lit
night, when no clouds interfere to pre-
vent the radiation of heat from the soil,
upon which the copious deposit of dew
depends, the more the crops grow and
thrive; and, also, when the farmer, see
ing his corn-fields green with grass and
the various weeds which so quickly
spring up and cover the ground. is
forced to 90 with harrow or cultivator
and hoe and kill these weeds, he is Civ
ing vitality to the soil and life and health
to his crops.
But there is another useful purpose
which weeds serve, and this is to furnish
a large amount of manurial matter to
the soil. When an oat-stubble, for in
stance, is left for few weeks after the
harvest and before the pillow is put in to
turn the soil for the rye or wheat, which
follows this crop in our usual rotation,
the surface is quickly covered with rag
weed, smartweed, and various other
kinds of plants. We well remember a
thrifty farmer of Eastern Pennsylvania
once congratulating himself upon the
luXuriant ragweed which covered his
oat-stubble as being worth for green
manure as much as crop of clover, and
yet costing him nothing. In this wav
the farmer gains more than he would
suspect, for the weeds gather from the
"NhooPhOiO anu Iuc sui IL ldTpe amount
OF fertilizing matter which would other
wise be lost or, at least, would not have
been made available. If one should
doubt that this gain is made from weeds,
let him compare the rich virgin soil of
the Western prairie, which for years
has been covered with thick growth of
weeds, wild plants, and with flowers of
every hue; the brilliant golden rods, the
starryasters, the graceful spireas, the
gorgeous helianthus, the ordorous chen
opodiums, the amaranths, and the thou
sand and one common weeds which
there reach to a surprising growth in
the favorable soil, and which carpet the
earth with a dense mat of green and
gold interviewer with threads of blue
and purple, red and white. For
1t is a great mistake to suppose
the prairies to be grassy plains; there
are patches of grass, it is true, but the
greater part of heritage consists of the
very weeds which the farmers of the
East are fighting day by day and spend
ing their lives trying to destroy. Com
pare, we say, these prairies, enriched
with the remains of these weeds, with
the barren plains further west, where no