The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1893-08-25
THE FARM AND HOME.
A HEAVY AND UNNECESSARY
TAX ON THE FARM.
Imposed by Weeds Dipping sheep Nee
essary to Health Butter Packages
Land Plaster-Timothy vs.. Wheat
Farm Notes and Home Hints.
Handling Harmful Weeds.

Handling Harmful Weeds.
Most of our American farmers look
on weeds as a matter of course. and
never seem to get the idea that
farm can be so managed as to become
free from weeds; so they look on
with placid Indifference while the
crab-grass, fox-tail, morning glories
and various kinds of burrs and
needles overrun the cornfelds after
cultivation ceases. and the rag-weed
hides the clover in the stubble-felds,
and the garden is hidden by mixed
mass of weeds so that it is necessary
to hunt for the potatoes with a
scythe and pitchfork when it comes
time to dig them. This carelessness
and Indifference suggests that good
can be done by fighting weeds with
the pen, and that the most essential
thing to do is to convince farmers,
first, that weeds impose heavy and
| unnecessary tax on them, and second,
that by intelligent management they
can be subjugated. If the farmers of
Europe need clean fields, we need
them much more, for they can hire
about three hands day for what one
costs US; and so, while they possibly
might afford to cultivate weedy
fields. we certainly cannot.
One of the greatest helps in subju-
eating weeds is clover, writes w. H.
Bowen in the Country Gentleman, for
two bodies cannot occupy the same
| space at the same time, and if fields
are we'll set with clover there is
much less room for weeds. A thick
stand Of clover shades the soil and
| keeps it moist, which is favorable to
the termination of seeds, and then
smothers them in their infancy.
| Clover is thickened and benefited
by cutting, while most of our peren-
NAL weeds are killed by cutting.
A field so seeded with rag-weed
that it takes full possession of the
soil can be thoroug hly cleansed in
five years by the use Of clover, and
by moving the stubble the last of July
or first of August have a field on
which this plan has been followed,
and five weeks ago it was planted to
potatoes. An examination of it yes
| terday showed it to be clean of
| weeds, although it has rained so in
cessantly that we have not been able
to go on it at all, but strip eight
feet WIDE. where a row of corn
shocks stood, had no clover on it,
and late last fall ripened crop of
weed seed, and on this strip there
is now a mat of weeds.
One must study the habits of plants
to fight weeds intelligently, and
know the conditions under which
they mature seed, and how they prop
| agate and scatter, to fight them
successfully. Some weeds are most
likely to spread in pastures and others
on cultivated land. Of some varieties
the seed will come up early in the
| spring and with others the battle
must be continued all summer. Some
weeds are omparatively harmless on
clay uplands, but run riot on rich
bottoms. / read that when the first
| Colorado potato beetle was seen in
Germany the cabinet was convened
to take prompt measures for it's
destruction, and there are some weeds
| SO persistent and difficult to eradi-
cate that if one is discovered on a
farm every man, woman and child
should be informed of it's character
and enlisted in the fight against it.
On many of our bottom farms where
corn is grown most of the time the
common blue morning glory is the
worst pest that was ever introduced,
and it is we'll nigh impossible to eradi-
cate it. 1t comes up soon after the
corn is laid by and grows until the
vines reach from hill to hill, so that
one can scarcely get through the
fields If you try to cut the corn up
to save the fodder you will have to
| cut it at both ends. and man walk
| ing through the field gets tangled in
| the vines.
One ought carefully to inspect all
seeds which he buys and refuse those
containing mixture. l introduced
the morning. glory referred to by
buying a bushel of beans, and it has
only been by constant watchfulness
| and vigilance that I have kept it
from spreading over my farm, and
although for eighteen summers l
have hunted for it and destroyed
every plant could find, have not
yet exterminated it. A few years
| ago bought some alsike clover seed
that contained seed of the ox-eye
daisy, but l am not apprehensive. of
trouble from it, as it is confined to a
pasture and does not seem to be
spreading.