614 Agricultural Experiment Station, Ithaca, N. Y. 



some other plant or nature will tuck another weed into it. Man 

 is yet too ignorant or too negligent to care for the land, and nature 

 must still stand at his back and supplement the work which he so 

 shabbily performs. She knows no plants as weeds. They are all 

 equally useful to her. It is only when we come to covet some plant 

 that all those which attempt to crowd it out become weeds to us. If, 

 therefore, we are competent to make a choice of plants in the first 

 place, we should also be able to maintain the choice against intrud- 

 ers. It is only a question of which plants we desire to cultivate. 



We must keep the land at work, for it grows richer and better 

 for the exercise. A good crop on the land, aided by good tillage, 

 will keep down all weeds. The weeds do not " run out " .the sod, 

 but the sod has grown weak through some fault of our own and 

 thus the dandelions and plantains find a chance to live. So the best 

 treatment for a weedy lawn is more grass. Loosen up the poor 

 places with an iron garden rake, scatter a little fertilizer and then 

 sow heavily of grass seed. Do not plow up the lawn, for then you 

 undo all that has been accomplished ; you kill all the grass and leave 

 all the ground open for a free fight with every ambitious weed in 

 the neighborhood. If the farmer occupies only half the surface of 

 his field with oats, the other half is bound to be occupied with 

 mustard or wild carrot or pigweeds ; but if his land is all taken 

 with oats, few other plants can thrive. So, a weedy farm is a poorly 

 farmed farm. But if it does get foul and weedy, then what? 

 Then use a short, quick, sharp rotation. Keep the ground moving 

 or keep it covered. No Russian thistle or live-for-ever or Jimson- 

 weed can ever keep pace with a lively and resourceful farmer. 



Some two years ago I saw the much-described Russian thistle 

 along the railroad track in western l^ew York. "' There," I said, 

 " is your schoolmaster. It comes with all the energy and freshness of 

 the west. It will bring new ideas. Presently it will invade our old 

 orchards, and how it will shake them up ! Then farming will mean 

 cultivation or thistles. And now and then the farmer will debate 

 if the old orchard is worth the trouble, and he will make wood of 

 the trees and a potato-patch of the land, and everyone will be the 

 gainer. If all that they say of it is true, this Russian thistle will 

 beat the canker-worm and the apple-scab and the codlin-moth as a 

 reformer. I am afraid that we need the Russian thistle." 



And yet, I do not look for such a furious spread of this Russian 

 thistle as it has enjoyed in the west ; for even in the east we grow 



