Norwich bulletin., 1913-07-12
THE SOURCE OF MANY NEW WEEDS

(written Specially for The Bulletin.)
 When I was a boy and had to help weed the onion bed and hoe the corn, came to have fairly intimate Knowledge of the weeds of the time. I don't think l ever bothered much about their correct botanic names. Most of them were known by local titles: some I invented designations for. when the older heads admitted their ignorance But l knew what they looked like and, in a general way, what their habits were.
 In the last twenty five or thirty years, l should say that the number of separate and individual weeds in my gardens has doubled, at least. That is, there are at least twice as many varieties growing there as grew on the same land fifty-five years ago. Some of the new sorts, which never saw as a boy, are chicory, dodder, craD- grass, wild buckWneat, mustard SOW thistle, hawkweed, sedge and tumbleweed. My old enemies or the onion patch were mostly pusley, shepherds purse, chickweed, quack- grass. green amaranth, ragweed, mal- low, dandelion, dock and plantaln l never saw a single one or the nrSt- named list when l was boy. Now l have them all. And more are coming almost every season.
 As look out of my eastern windows against a hill-slOpe showing several fields of oats, two have been notice able for a fortnight by reason of their color. They are, or have been till within a day or two, fairly yellow with wild mustard. Close inspection shows that for every five stalks of oats there are at least two stalks of this pesky weed. The two fields be- long to neighbor whose oats have, for the last twenty years, to my per sonal knowledge, shown this same degree of weediness, with the same sort of weed. He always buys his seed oats where he can buy them from five to ten cents a bushel less than the rest of us.
 And he gets, year after year, mix ture of oats and wild mustard which he ought to be ashamed to have seen on his farm.
 I've often wondered how many of the new weeds which are bothering my gardens have come to me in boughten seeds. A recent bulletin Of the New York Agricultural Experi- ment station tells of the analyses of seed samples made there, last year.
 The results are Illuminating. not to say eye-opening. The station has tested only grass and clover seeds of the kind We all use in seeding down" d pdiSn OA RAOA1AA AOA AONeSeASAA PNN
 The tables printed tell me where some of my new pests came from.
 For instanee; in the samples tested of timothy, 'red-top, blue-g grass and three kinds of clover, last season, were found just one hundred and fifty different sorts of weeds. They include all those I have mentioned as of recent introduction with me, except he hos I7a f1ff1 1H1ATv6ad The latter doesn't need any help in spreading itself. It will roll across two states before the wind, if it doesn't happen to fall into some river or lake on the way, shedding seeds at every tumble. And the hawkweed has come to me in manure, bought from neighbors who don't keep their pas lures clean Of it. The rest I have no doubt have been sown on with grass or clover seed when stocking the land.
 The samples analysed by the New York station were all of commercial seeds, offered in the usual way, by retail dealers Some of the facts dis closed are startling In the 150 sepa- rate samples of timothy seed tested 51 had in them cinQuefoii seed, 13 dock seed, 25 fox-tail seed, B lambs duarters seed. S5 plantain seed. and 70 sheep sorrel
 In the IT0 samples Of common red clover examined 2S had In them black medfck seed 3e field madder seed, 2f chiccry seed, s5 heal-all seed, 57 lambs quarters seed, 47 pigweed seed, 73 sheep Sorrei seed, 40 wild carrot seed; and eight out of every ten had more or less plantain seed. The clover also carried, in smaller quanti ties. such peculiarly abominable weeds as chicory, chess crab grass, dodder, mot-grass. mallow, mayweed, mus tard. witch-grass, ragweed, shepherds Curse, smartweed and yarrow. AL together no less than eighty-SiX vari- eties of weed seeds were found in the single item of red clover, and fifty six varieties in timothy. These two are probably the most widely and commonly used of all seeds for re- grassing old ground.
 Now nature has provided most seeds with amply adequate means for distributing themselves. Some are made with downy or bladdery attach ments to assist in their carriage by the winds: some grow in such a way that the whole plants, when ripe, break off and roll back and forth be- fore each shifting breeze: some are cunningly designed so that birds, pecking at their seeds for luncheon, carry others and drop them in their flight: some are so indigestible that, when eaten by cattle, they pass un- harmed through the intestines and lie dormant in the manure.
 It really seems a little too much that farmers. who must necessarily fight weeds distributed on their land by these natural and unavoidable means, should also have to fight scores of others, foisted upon them as adul- terants in the field seeds they buy.
 it isn't always the retail dealer from whom we buy directly who is to blame. He must sell as cheaply or a little more cheaply than his com petitors. if he wants to sell at all And cheap goods are not always the best goods. whether in grass seed or in crowbars.
 Nor is the individual buyer to blame He seldom has either the time or the skill to discover what weed seeds are in the bags of stuff he buys:
 - =-==-==----==-=--=---------=-=
 PFrnfQCf EisHe