News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1885-02-26
FARM AND GARDEN.

DESTROYING WEEDs.-To destroy 6
growth of Canada thistles some say the
land must be plowed five or six times
during the season, but / have seen q
dense growth of these, as high as mans
head, destroyed, so that there is not one
to be seen on the land to-day, by simply
having been cut down once; this was at
just the time they were coming into
blossom.
never have considered it difficult
| job to destroy most weeds, and have
always done it by moving them down.
1t can be done by commencing at them
in the spring and moving them down
every time they get above ground all
summer; but this is not the better way;
one moving at just the right time will
be of as much service as all this. Cen
orally if a plant is moved or cut off in
the spring, it will send up new sprouts
with great vigor, but if it is allowed to
grow till it has received its full growth
in stature and commences to blossom,
before the top is severed from the root
it has its vitality reduced to the mini
mum point.
Very few weeds can endure long to be
moved every year at about the time
when moving has its most destructive
effect. There are many places along
fences and roadsides and in similar stu
ations where it becomes difficult to pillow
to destroy weeds, but where they can be
easily movn every year. In the open
meadow, field which contains Canada
thistles should be moved rather early
so as not to allow the thistles to ripen.
l have seen meadows which were dense
growth of common wild fax, Linan1
Uirgi'aidnat'1a, entirely freed from that
weed by just one moving. Some of the
common berry bushes which are very
hardy, and are always springing up
along fences and in spare places, as for
instance the raspberry, are very difficult
to destroy, but are discouraged and in
| iured each time they are cut, that cut
ting being done just as they have COM
menced to blossom. This is seen in the
fact that when trees are cut in August
or thereabouts, the root is killed, while
if cut in spring they will quite gener-
ally spring up again.
The early part of the seasons growth,
when the plant is gorged with sap, it is
its nature to put out new growth of
wood, extend in new directions, repair
injuries, and the like; during the latter
stages of its growth, this it cannot nat
urally do, but its growth is changed in
entirely a different direction, namely,
forming flowers and seeds, and now if
its top be entirely removed, it is not
the nature of the roots to send up new
growth of wood; therefore they must
perish.
A plant cannot live without its top
and leaves, because even the roots them
selves could not be nour1shed, and it is
very necessary they should be. Though
they might take up in solution mineral
substances and gases in large quantities
from the earth, they could not be
directly nourished by this "crude sap"
The carbon which the plants would re-
quire, and which more than half of all
dry vegetation is composed of, is locked
up by the strongest chemical affiuities
in sort of useless compound carbonic
acid, which must be decomposed by the
most delicate of all structures-the leaf
cell-before the plant can obtain its
supply of carbon. Thus the propriety
of the theory, if plants, or rather weeds,
are not allowed to have any leaves they
will die. If the weeds are kept from
having any leaves, either by blowing,
moving, or in any other way, they will
never be any bother Country Gentle
man.