Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1893-11-16
A HEAVY AND UNI ECES SARY
TAX ON THE FARM.
Imposed by Weeds Dipping sheep Nee
essary to Health Butter Packages
Land Extraordinarily VS.. Wheat
Farm Notes and Home Hints.
Handling Harmful Weeds.

on weeds as matter OF course. ana
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
noodles overrun the cornfields after
cultivation ceases, and the rag-weed
hides the clover in the stubblef fields,
and the garden is hidden by a 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 a 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. II.
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.
Glover 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 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 60 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 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 comparatively 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 its
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 its 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 well nigh impossible to eradi-
cate it. 1t comes up soon after the