St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1912-11-16
johnson Grass Easily Killed

For twenty years L cuSSed
and discussed johnson grass IN
language more potent than pol
lite. This was all brought about
by the blind leading the blind,
but not with the same equitable
results as spoken of in Holy Writ,
where they both fell in the ditch
together. This was a case OF
digging a ditch to get the john
son-grass roots out Of the field.
/, the blind follower, bent my
back and sweated in the broiling
sun digging this ditch all alone,
while the blind leader, who is
sued some bulletin from some
agricultural department was en-
lioying himself. sitting IN the
shade Of some office drawing
Government pay. But such IS
life. Like Saul of Tarsus, the
scales fell from my eyes IN the
year 1905 and I saw the true
light, and like him Ihaye become
an apostle of that I one $50 vehe-
mently fought. / now boldly
proclaim that Johnson grass IS a
friend. more than a pest to the
Southern farmer, and If it would
grow as thriftii1y in the North as
in the South, the northern farm
ers would hail it as one Of their
choicest blessings.
The prime cause of imposing
upon the farmer this heavy and
unnecessary task of eradicating
johnson grass, and thereby
bringing the grass in such bad
repute, was an error in it's CLASH
fcation by botanists. All plant
life is divided into three general
classes; theeperennials, the bien-
mails and the ANNALS. A perea=
NAL is a plsnt which lives or con-
tinues more than two years. BIZ
ennial plants continue for two
years and then perish. An annual
is a plant that requires to be re
neWed every year. In other
words. an annual must make seed
one year to perpetuate itself the
next year. Ever since Governor
Means Of South Carolina intro
duced johnson grass into the
United States from Turkey in
1880 botanists and agricultural
departments have taught that
this grass was a perennial, and
therefore the roots had to be dug
no and carried out of the field IN
order to eradicate it. This was
a grave error fraught with many
i'll consequences to the oVerbur-
dened farmers of the South.
discovered in 1905 this grass to
be an annual. Therefore, as
every farmer knows, any annual
can be destroyedin a single year
by preventing seed from forming
for the next year. Some ANIMALS
are mere difficult to destroy than
others, and johnson grass is the
most difficult to destroy than 9th.
ers, and Johnson grass IS the
most difficult of all the ANIMALS.
It is a rapid and vigorous groves
and, like the Irish potato. has
two methods of seedlings, one
,aboye and the other below the
ground, and, like the potato, the
underground seed is the most i'm.
Dortant IN perpetuating the lif'
Of the plant. The potato mus.
make new tubers every year. o.
else no tops will appear IN tn
same patch the next season. |.
new tops do appear, as often oc
ours, the well-informed farrne.
knows that they did not COM
from the tubers he planted tn
wear before, but from new tuber
he failed to get while digging
!. He further knows that all the oil
tubers he planted exhausted theI
vitality making togs to make nev
tubers and then rotted. Nov
this is exactly the case with John
son grass, only it makes rhlzo
! mes, or r~ootstocks, intead Q