The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1892-01-01
THE FARM AND HOME.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF DE-
sTROYING WEEDS.
Weeds Must All Be Destroyed-T
Undue Sourness OF Cream-value
OF the Roller-Farm Notes
and Home Hints.
Destroying Weeds.

L
In cleaning farms of the most trou-
blesome kind of weeds it is exceed
ingly important that the weeds be all
destroyed. The present mistake farm
ers make probably, is in leaving a
remnant writes Thomas Shaw in the
Ohio Farmer. That is to say, they
adopt only wholesale methods of de-
struction, having no faith in these re-
tail methods, as spudding and hand
pulling, without practicing which to
some extent no farm in the world can
be kept clean. A field is perhaps sub
jected to the bare-fallow process. 1t
is probably plowed a number of times
during the season, and nearly all the
couch grass infesting it is it may be-
destroyed. But a remnant Is left here
and there which at once sets about re-
covering lost possession, and very
probably in a few years the couch
grass is quite as troublesome in that
field as at first. Now when the farmer
undertook to destroy the couch grass
in that field he should have DESTROYED
it.
hold it cardinal principle in
weed obstruction that complete
destruction is always cheaper in the
end than that which is partial. A
field may be subjected to process of
cleaning by means of hoed crop
The weeds may be kept we'll in check
until the cultivation can run no longer.
From that time until the crop is har-
vested all care of the field ceases, with
the result, that some weeds here and
there have ripened their seeds and
scattered them on a seedbed where
the conditions for their propagation
could not well be more favorable
Now in cleaning that field no labor
would have paid so well as that en-
ployed in going over the field once
more, and destroying the weeds that
have thus been allowed to ripen.
A hoed crop may be effective in de-
stroying the principal portion of the
wild mustard seeds in a given field, be-
cause Of the frequent stirring of the
soil which has led to the termination
of seeds in the same, and to the subse-
quent destruction of the plants from
these as often as they have appeared.
But some seeds still remain in the soil.
The next year, perhaps, the field is
sown to barley, and a goodly sprink-
ling of the mustard.appears in the bar
ley. Now if these mustard plants are
allowed to ripen it is plain that the
field will be to some extent reseeded
again through the Smelling of the
| mustard. But this is not all The
mustard seeds will be conveyed to an
other field in the manure and the evil
goes on. Under such conditions the
| farmer might as well climb to the
| moon as to try to completely free his
| farm of weeds. The mustard must not
only be removed from all the barley
by pulling or spudding. but it must
also be removed from all the interven.
ing crops until the hoed crop comes
again in the rotation. The man who
is not willing to look after mustard in
this way may as well give up the con
test for he will not succeed.
! Just little more effort in the
autumn season would remove the last
thistle from a certain field where corn
is growing. The work is neglected,
although our man probably would have
removed the stray thistles from tifteer
acres of corn in one day. The field il
then devoted to the growth of grair
and hay and in four or five seasons il
as foul with thistles again. as when the
| cultivation of the first corn crop com
menced.
Don't say that you can't get time fol
this, for don't want to have to say tx
you that don't believe you. If 70,
can get time to remove three-fourths
of the weeds from your field one yeal
and to go through the same process.
four or five years later, then you Cal
get time to remove them all the frs
time so far as this can be done, fo1
the one latter process requires much
less time than the former, usually
We get time to do what our hearts ar,
set upon doing. 1 venture to say tina
there is not young man in all tn,
United States and Canada who doe
not get time occasionally to visit tn,
object of his supreme regard on earth
and if the desire is so strong and i
ought to be- to get the last trouble
some weed, we will get it.
1t is idle to say that there is no us,
in trying to get the last weed. for the.
will come again. It is objected tina
it is hopeless to try to keep weeds a
bay when the seeds thereof, like tn,
spirits of darkness are traversing tn,
air and at certain seasons are comins
down upon the land. Let them come
A determined. persevering man il
more than a match for weeds, though
they come from any quarter whatever
/ know some farms in Canada which
are not only clean. but they are ais
being kept clean, while the neighbor
ing farms situated on the windwar,
side are foul with weeds. Many of tn,
farms around this experiment station
are filled with weeds. We are no
much concerned because of that fo
the truth must be self-evident that i
farm can be cleaned that has beef
very foul it can. easily be kept clean
We meet with plenty of fossils of thu
olden time who say to us, The weed
will come again" To be sure the,