CHAPTER IX.
WEEDS.
It is not enough to know what to grow, you must also know what not to grow for profit, in a garden patch; and first in this class come weeds. Study them until you know even their seeds. You cannot expect to get rid of weeds until you know the nature of them and the best way to attack them, so that they may be readily destroyed. If you run across any common ones that you cannot place, send sample to the Department of Agriculture. They will tell you all about them. Get from the Department Farmer’s Bulletin 28 on “Weeds and How to Kill Them.” All this will pay.
One of the most common of the weeds of the north is the pigweed. This is the growth of one year and can be destroyed by simply preventing it from running to seed. A year or two will clear out even the most obstinate growth of pigweed.
Mustard, plantain, chess, dodder, cockle, crab-grass and Jimsonweed are the most disagreeable of the common weeds. The best time to kill them is when they are small; therefore, you should keep the ground constantly stirred up that the young weeds may not have a chance to get a firm hold of the soil. If they do get a start on you, don’t let them ripen. Cut them down before they run to seed at all. Never let up in your war upon them. That advice holds good for all weeds, whether they be annuals, which die every year, biennials that last for two years, or perennials that can stand the winters. The biennials commonly found are wild carrot, thistle, moth mullein, wild parsnip and burdock. These are best destroyed by cutting the roots below the leaves with a grubbing hoe or spud. Be sure they are cut low enough, else they will branch out and make new seeds.
Some weeds live more than two years and are called perennials, such as many grasses, dock, Canada thistle, poison ivy, passion-flower, horse-nettle, etc. The best thing to do with them is to dig them out and take them away. Crude sulphuric acid applied to the soil kills them, or they may be starved by covering them with boards or with layers of straw. If they come up through the straw, lift it up a bit and let it fall again. There is yet another method, and if you have the time and land to spare, you will find it a good one. Smother them out by a dense growth of useful plants. Some use buckwheat and others cowpeas. The cowpeas are to be preferred as they enrich the soil by the nitrogen their roots gather. And that is another story that has its own time and place. Just now we are considering weeds, and you will find that they will keep you considering most of the time, for the only good thing so far known about them is, that they make even lazy farmers till their crops, if they have any. Left to themselves, weeds shade the crops, steal their nourishment, waste moisture, and probably poison the soil. Not even a mortgage can eat up a farmer’s profits like weeds.