The Penn's Grove record., 1883-12-01
AGRICULTURE,

CANADA THIsTLEs. The Thistle is the
most annoying weed that intrudes upon
the farm. Hard to exterminate and to-
nacious of life, 1t propagates wherever a
plans Of any kind can secur q foothold
and once in possession of a field the cost
of its eradication is sometimes greater
than the value of the field itself. 1t is
a perennial plant, with annual stems,
and r~eproduces itself from seeds and
roots, and it is due 10 its power of rapid
reproduction that it is enabled 10
Withstand the farmers attacks so sue
cessfully.
The thistle is now receiving the at
tention of many experienced and prac-
teal agriculturists, among them MIR.
Archibald Stone, OF Binghamton, N. Y,
who states that 40 plant is SO entirely
dependent on sunshine as the Canada
thistle. Grow them IN mass, OF 80
closely together that they will complete
~ shade the ground, and as fast as the
leaves get matured sufficiently to begin
TO restore to the plant the nutriment it
has s the plant to produce them them
they will be through IN the shade by
the constantly increasing mass of leaves
on the top; they will die for want of
sunshine, the stems become naked and
the roots become exhausted while In
bloom, and your ground will have to be
reseeded before. another crep grows. Ii
the thistles are 70 scattering that they
will O shade the ground, corn, oats or
clover will have to be sown,
In his article TO the Husbandmau, Mr.,
Stone states that ripening a crop of seed
is exhaustive to any crop, yet to think
of getting rid of Canada thistles by
moving after they had ripened a crop OF
seed and burning 1T seems to be too
slow a process for this age.
Other writer's have recommended diff
ferent methods for exterminating the
thlstles, and claim that individual efforts
alone are useless. As the down is easily
carried by the winds to considerable
distances the cleanest fields are as liza
BILE to mf1ictlon as the ioulest. No mat-
ter how careful a farmer may be tokeep
the pest of, his efforts will be thrown
away If his adjoining neighbors do moi
exercise the same care as himself. The
work of destruction can be done at the
most suitable periods by cooperative
action, and each individual will he "a
much interested In the work upon his
neighbor's field as upon his own. The
distribution OF the seeds must be pre-
vented in preference to anything eIse,
and much labor may be saved in SO do
ing by moving the thistles when
young, and before they can have an OPP
p%ortunity to seed. 1t must be lone SIS
often as necessity for SO dong occurs,
and the next business will be u destroy
the plants by shading with some other
crop and pulling or digging them out,
when Is not often necessary, except
when fields are entirely overrun. But
the continued use OF the mower is one
OF the best remedies to try, although it
requires the abandonment OF the field
Tor "a season. That, however, is the PEN
atty the farmer pays for the intrusion,
and Is not heavy compared with other
tried methods.
1t might be claimed without much
exaggeration that the growth of a single |
thistle on 8 farm is the beginning oil
decay, aud should cause as much alarm
as the entrance of an epidemic in a com
munlty. As sanitary measures are need
ed III The case OF epidemic, so is coop |
erative effort required to prevent the
spread OF thistles hss aslsGFi