Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1919-05-16
HOW TO EXTERM|NATE
WILD MORNING GLORY

perience with very obnoxious weed
known as the wild morning glory
vine or bind-weed, which found on
my place in the summer of 1910 of
which there was patch covering an
area OF about ten square rods, but
just as thick as it was possible for it
to grow and by my not being ia
mlIiar with the plant, did not know
the consequences that would result
from the weed
! 1 nave learned since that the weed
l very frequently found in old oar
oeh beds throughout the state. 1t
grows from vin-like plant. has a.
very dark green color, the bloom is
SNAPPED just the same as the tame
morning glory only that it is much
smaller in size, the opening of the
bloom is about the size of a twenty
5-cent piece, and it is a very pretty
little morning glory The roots are
about the size of an ordinary darn
ing needle, and where the plant has
a good start, grow in a tremendous
mass, reaching into the ground to
great depth. have dug down to
depth of five feet and found the
roots just as thick and just as big
at the bottom of the hole as thew
were at the top.
The summer of 1910 | planted this
garden spot to potatoes, with the re-
suit that by cultivating the potatoes
| strewed the vine like roots all over
the entire patch, consisting of about
one acre, and at the same time we
did tremendous lot of hoeing in the
garden. Where the weed was the
thickest our work was apparently
highly relished by the plant, as the
fact seemed to be, the faster we
hoed, the faster the plant grew.
Then the following summer, thinking
| could eradicate the weed by turn
ing the hogs in, very natural dem
onstration occurred. The hogs would
root the plant out at one place, carry
it on their noses and plant it in an
other. Rather peculiar, but at the
end of the season | had a very nice
start of this wild morning glory,
/ D.,
this time | was beginning to realize
that something must be done to
eradicate this weed, or | would even
tually have it over the entire farm,
and from experience ! had of raising
potatoes on this ground, it plainly
goes to show that absolutely moth
! ing can be raised where this weed mas
got a good start. People may talk
about different obnoxious weeds, but
in my opinion there is nothing that
can be a worse pest or harder to
eradicate than the wild morning
glory vine.
In the season of 1912 | correspond
ed with the State College asking for
information concerning this plant,
and some means of eradication. |
got several suggestions, but could get
no definite plan. Their suggestions
were: First, to plant the ground to
some kind of garden truck and keep
the weeds hoed out. This, as | have
above stated, was not a success. A
second suggestion was to summer fal-
low the ground, and this | did in the
summer of 1913, with very poor re-
suits, as in this case the harder the
ground is kept packed, and the less
the ground is stirred, the easier it
will be to prevent the leaves from
forming, as blowing and disking tend
only to cultivate the plant, as this is
principally root and vine plant and
must be starved out. The third sug-
gestion was to pasture the enclosure
with sheep. This method will work
if you have enough sheep to tramp it
out, but not to pasture it out. This
was really all the State College
could do for me.
Then l saw an article in news
paper giving the full description and
naming this weed, and stating that
this weed was simply taking the state
of Kansas and southern California
also offering a method of eradica-
ton. This method was to cover the
ground with tar paper, and smother
out the plant. You will find this
method hard to comply with. Also
the method of putting salt on the
ground, which | tried out, and the
summer of 1918 I put several tons OF
salt on less than one acre of ground
with the results, that in my opinion
salt will do the work alright, but It
will to some extent injure the ground
and again it will require a mighty
long pocket book. After placing seVe-
L