The pioneer press. (Miller, Hand County, S.D.) 1893-190?, 1895-04-25
MOTION, In Dakota Farmer.

AS my experience with the Russian
thistle may be interesting to some of
your readers should you see fit to pub
lish 1t | would say:
If we wish to clean the land of foul
weeds we must stop sowing them. The
tarmers of this country alone are un-
consciously sowing hundreds of bushels
OF Russian thistles every year. How
40 they do it? Well, a friend said to
ne last fall, Il am cleaning my land of
thlstles in fine shape" When asked
how he was doing it he said, Il am go
ing over it with a four horse drag and
that takes up every one of them: as
soon as they are loose the wind blows
them away and leaves the land as clean
as a house floor" ''smole" and went
along thinking that with his way he
would not only thoroughly seed his
own land, but also every spot of plow-
ed land around him. Again, standing
on the street one day last month, | saw
a farmer at work in his wheat field
sowing thistles. He had a pitch-fork
and passing from n thistle to another
he would loosen them from the ground,
toss them in the air, and as the wind
was blowing quite hard, away they
would go across his land knocking out
the seed continually. and on across his
neighbors land, seeding, seeding every
where they went, and the men who
clean their land in this way, look owe
it and doubtless thank God they will
have no further trouble with the foul
weed, not once thinking of the mill
ions of seeds they have planted for
another crop. Suppose you ask them
about the seed they have sent over to
their neighbOrs, they reply, Am my
brothers keeper? let him take care of
his and ! will take care of mine"
There is an old saying chickens will
come home to roost." and so will the
Russian thistle. ! am not much of a
farmer, but | believe that whatever is
worth doing, should be done well.
/ have often been asked TO tell
through some paper what | knew
about the Russian thistle. Well, first,
| know that the way it is now handled,
it is a great curse to the farmers, but.
il attended to as it should be, it will
surely prove a blessing in disguise.
In 1898 ! sOwed flax upon 30 acres of
plu SlOlIu. L Idllt up hl'IlS WV =
thought surely | would have a good
crop, but, SOC the thistle made its
appearance and for a while it was quite
a question which wOuld come out
ahead. but finally the flax seemed to
say just what | have many times said
in regard to other matters, Life is too
short for me to quarrel with these tel-
lows" SO it gave up the struggle and
let the thistle get to the front, and L
got no fax. Not knowing at that time
the value of my crop of thistles n
fax, | let it stand until the spring OF
1894, then in order to use the land
was obliged to get rid of that immense
crop of old thistles, but how could 1t be
done? | decided to try my hay bucker,
| soon found they would unload them
selves and all | had to do was to stand
the machine and drive on and GA
until the thistles would extend so far
in front that they would begin to roll
under, and soon all would be left be-
hind except what remained on the
teeth, and these would rub or drag
along on the ground cleaning up every
kind of a weed. My man followed with
pitchfork and matches, throwing to-
gether and burning everything | left.
When we were through we thought
we had done a splendid job, and so
we had, but, like the Others | have
spoken of, we did not think of the seed
we had left all over the ground. Soon
after l seeded all but 10 acres of that
ground with black barley. l put it in
with a press drill and in four days it
was up and looking as fine as any
grain | ever saw. 1t grew until it was
about 4 inches high and by that time
the ground had become SO dry that the
barley would not grow; it seemed to
stay right there for about two weeks.
In the meantime the thistles had come
up so thick that the ground looked as
though it was coated over with green
moss, and dry weather only made that
grow the faster. 1t seemed to just
laugh at the barley because it could
not grow without rain; it shot right
past it leaving it almost out of sight.
The latter part of July | had about 20
acres of thistles with a little barley
mixed with it standing 20 inches high,
and ] did not know what to do with it.
Realizing that | must some time clean
off the land in order to get another
crop, l went at it with the moving
machine and cut the whole of it down,
raked it up, drew it home and stacked
it, thinking | would see if it could be
used as fodder. / made my stack IS
feet wide and GA feet long. Not stack
ing it as soon as / should after cutting,
| found it almost impossible to work
upon it, so we piled it up in the best
shape we could from the wagon until
it was about Is feet high. BY this time
l was Disguised With the thistle, but
still more so at what people said about
my fine stack of hay, as they called it;
so | left several loads in the field, think
ing | would burn hat when | got time,
but my stock got the start of me and
ate it all up. After having built my
stack as before stated, l topped it out
-:4A Dlor.t n lnHnn lnnlCA Of Goa rec hay