The Dupuyer acantha. [volume] (Dupuyer, Mont.) 1894-1904, 1900-08-02
POISON ON THE FARM.
NOxIoUS PLANTS WHICH KILL
OFF STOCK.
Death Turks in Many G-Owths Common
in the Fields-Fifty-Two Kinds Are
Poisonous and seventy-six Are Under
the Ban of Suspicion. v

U1dtS WHICH JCdChCS CAlCLA ID v AAS
Of vegetation are harmful or poisonous
seems to be lost when the animals are
domesticated, as a result of which
thousands of head of live stock are lost
In this country every year through
poisonous vegetation. The department
of agriculture has made a scientific in
vestigation and has issued a catalogue
of plants that are poisonous Or dan
gerous to stock. There are 81 species
that are poisonous, 80 concerning the
poisonous qualities of which there is
good though not positive evidence, and
81 which come under the head of sus-
poets. Nearly all of these forms OF
vegetation are of common growth in
various parts of the country. OF the
grasses, which nearly all ruminant an
imals of this continent feed upon, sew
eral species are dangerous. The seed
of she darnel, or poison rye grass,
which grows abundantly on the Paci-
fc slope, is said to be dangerous TO
both animals and a In New Mexico
and Arizona grows a perennial grass
locally known as sleepy grass. which
horses and cattle bred in that region
recognize and eschew as harmful; but
imported stock feed upon it and often
die of it's narcotic effects, falling into
a deep slumber, from which it is i'm
possible to arouse them. Indian corn
grass has been described as fatal to
cattle when eaten in large quantities,
but the poisonous properties are due,
not to the vegetation itself, but to pa
rasitic growths upon it. The common
meadow grasses causes yearly a heavy
mortality. Every year farmers report
the poisoning of cattle from eating
golden rod, and this, too, is very likely
a case of parasitic growth, known as
rust. Another product of the flower
garden, and one of the most beautiful
is a swift and violent poison to man
and beast alike; the delicate and frag'
rant lily of the valley. Cases Of severe
poisoning are on record, where people
have merely bitten at the stems Of
the plant in abstraction.
Most dreaded of all poisonous weeds
by ranchmen is the loco weed, common
in one or another of its forms through
out the west, where it does enormous
damage to stock. The chief damage is
to horses, which seem to take to the
weed more readily than cattle, AMI
soon become locoed. A horse is said to
be locoed when he acquires an unnat-
ural appetite for the d%eleterious weed.
Once in this condition he will touch
no other food and in a short time be-
comes crazy, in which state he some
times runs wild, flashing out with his
heels and biting at the man or animal
that comes near him, and sometimes
staggers about with dropping head and
The cause of death is thought to be
inanition rather than actual poisoning
in loco cases, as there is no nourish-
ment in the weed and the animals ad-
Gicted to the habit pine away with
surprising rapidity. The loco habit in
horses is comparable to the opium or
hasheesh habit in human beings, ex
cept that the animal, having no rea-
soning powers to act as check upon his
appetite, succumbs more quickly. The
state of Colorado between 1881 end
1885 paid out in bounties nearly $780,
coo in an effort to exterminate the
woolly loco weed, which is the com
monest species in hat region, but the
plant is still abundant there. To sheep
the lupines, a genius of herbaceous
shrub, are almost as deadly as the loco
is to horses. Reports from three herds
in 1898 show a mortality of 1000 from
lupine eating.
In the eastern half of the United
States, where it chiefly grows, the rat
tlebox, or rattlewood, is an object o1
concern to farmers, lest it become
mixed with hay in cutting, for in this
way it is frequently fatal to horses
sometimes to cattle. In its growing
state animals will not touch it,. This
curious weed is also a source of ex
IRENE terror to human beings who ell
counter it after the plant has begur
to get dry, and the oblong pods which
it bears begin to %stiffen, for in tina
condition the peas within the pods
when the plant is struck or brushed
against, rattle with an exact and BLOOD
chilling imitation Of the warning o
the rattlesnake.