Norwich bulletin., 1910-12-10

nn over. The only earthly way can Kin the stuff iS by summer following; by giving mp season to the Work, keeping the ground piowed and har- rowed so Chat not single green thing shall be allowed to appear above the surface tO breathe a whole lot of hard work. and practically deprive you Of the use of tfl9 land for a full senson. ft will kill the quack. however. But it won't help you any w4th the seven hundred and seventy seven other kinds of weeds which at once come in to make things cOmpanionable for you, when you start your next crop. What arc you going t0 do with them? The only know is tO hoo and hoe and keep on hoeing: weed and weed and keep on wceding.
 ons agricultural authority reeorn- nnends. the use of tar-paper. He says if you'll spread f over the weeds. giving bhe edges lap of at least six inches, keep H weighted down so the wind won't lift it or the weeds push through if. and let il lie thus for at Yeast sixty days. 1t will kill the weeds under it. I should think it might And when you've put on your tar paper about the first of May. leaving it there til the first Of July, [ s'pose you can raise buckwfeat later on the patch. But ] ~ vest off an acre plot treated this way would pay a biz profit on the tar- paper and the labor of spreading If end wr1gfn ting it and watching it every thunder storm or Wind-gust. And. furthermore, do you really suppose that acre, the year after, when you tried to put 1t into some profitable crop?
 l. isn't only quack- grass and Can ada thisties and a few such obstreper ous weeds that bother 9;-it's tho smaller fry which come from heaven knows where. bart come every time and all the time. ] once started to make llst of the different varieties Of weeds ' hood and pulled from my little on iOn-bed. I knew chickweed and puas- Icy and rcdroot and piRweed and shep- herds purse and mustard and nlalloW and plsntaln and scurvy grass and quscls- grass and crab grass and bent grass and some others. but, say. hadn't crawled a dozen feet along that first row before I had a dozen other kinds tiyat I didn't even know the names of I gave it up. right there; decided that I'd have to pull 'em up or cut 'en off without waiting for q form al introduction. So I never settled it exactly, how many kinds of weeds did grow on that onion-bed. But there were QulLG EJlnGt OI lIldL ILiy BDIf knees and my worn fingers and my aching back gave me testimony before I got through And that on q bed which had been fallowed the season before, so that not a single green shoot of q. single weed had once showed above the surface.
 So far as my experience goes. speak ing as a gardener rather than as q many acre -c1ltivating faner, the only way to get any comfort at all out of weeds is to treat 'ern as q blessing after all. The secret of successful crop growing lies In just two words fertilization and tiNage. Of these two it is hard to say which is the more i'm pOrtant. It is one-legged farming which tries doing without either. But tillage calls for moro work than fentn ization, and we're all of us apt to neg lect it or scant 1t. Right there come fr the weeds. If your land is clean , you may be tempted to let 1t alone, or the ground that it doesn't need culti vatfng. But it does. just the same And the weeds wake you up to IL | There are lots of farmers who wouldn
 take the time from other work to cul- l tivate their corn or potatoes just tC l make a dust-mulch and stop the soi | from baking and fill up the cracks an( | conserve the sub-Surface moisture,-- | lots of farmers wouldn't do this, bu | WHO VIII HlTTy the teams aIQ DOys tS | the patch when the weeds and grasi begin to show thick over it. Yet mere. | ly killing the weeds is less helpful tt | the crop than the tillage which thu l process necessitateS.
 | If all farmers, everywhere, voulC ] only cultivate their crops thorougl1l1
 and consistently. for the sake of tn,
 advantage won by the cultivation. theI
 we should have to admit that weeds from the farmers point of view, weri | an unmitigated nuisance. But so Ionl | as many of us neglect this primar-
 and fundamental part of cur work a.
 tillerz of the soil, let's admit that tn 1 weeds are sort O useful after all
 When they stick up their green top
 through the dirt, all over q field. it
 as if about ten thousand of the littI 1 burgers were calling out: Hey, oll
 sleepy, wake Up and get out here [, i bizi"
 THE FARMER.