202 [Senate 



a number of cattle, will find it advantageous to tie each animal at night 

 to its place at the rack, to prevent the stronger from driving the 

 weaker away from its food and into the weather. The largest and 

 best barn in the county was built in 1841-2, by Josepli H. Seguine, 

 at Prince's Bay, in the township of Westfield. 



NOXIOUS WEEDS. ^ - 



The principal troublesome and most prevalent weeds, are the large 

 ox-eyed daisy, johnswort, wild onions and dock. 



The Daisy ^ (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum.) — The daisy, when 

 growing among clover or timothy, will not injure the hay made of 

 them for domestic use if they be cut early to prevent the daisy from 

 ripening its seed. The hay will be readily eaten by cattle in the win- 

 ter, but the mixture of daisy lessens .the price of such hay in the 

 New- York market. If a field infested with daisies, be not attended 

 to, they will grow and increase with astonishing rapidity, eradicate 

 the grasses, and spread to the adjacent fields. The plant blooms in 

 June, and ripens its seeds in July, andif not cut before the seeds fall, 

 the crop will be greater the ensuing year; and when the quantity ex- 

 ceeds the clover or timothy among which it is growing, the hay made 

 from a mixture of such grass and weeds is deteriorated in quality and 

 is unsalable. The large white ox-eyed daisy is spread over the Isl- 

 and, and it will be difficult to eradicate it. If one person be care- 

 ful to check its growth, his fields will be seeded by his less attentive 

 neighbor, who may be indifferent to its existence; and when ripe, the 

 seeds, which are small and light, are wafted by the winds to other 

 and distant lands. When the daisy takes entire possession of a field, 

 it makes very poor food for cattle, either green or dry, and can only 

 be destroyed by breaking up the sward and putting in a hoed crop. 



There is also a small daisy growing on a tall single stalk, which ri- 

 pens later than the large daisy, but is kept in check by being cut ge- 

 nerally before the seed ripens. The stalk is coarse and thick, has 

 several branches towards the top, and numerous white blossoms as 

 large as a finger nail. 



Johnswort^ (Hypericum perforatum.) — A few years since johns- 

 wort was very prevalent and was spreading. Cutting the grass in 

 which it abounds before the seed ripens^ will soon destroy it; but its 

 coarse stiff stalk, if cut early or late, w^ill not be eaten Ijy domestic 

 animals, and it injures the sale of hay in which it abounds. In 1841, 

 it nearly all disappeared from the county, which has been attributed 

 by some to the fact that the hay harvest occured mostly in the wane 

 of the moon in July. 



Wild Garlic or Wild Omons, (Allium vineale,) are a great pest, in- 

 juring the quality of the grain among which it grows, and the flour 

 made from such grain; and in pasture lands causing the butter made 

 from the milk of cows which feed upon them, to taste of onions. In 

 the spring they start before all the grasses, and cattle turned into 

 early pasture smell strong of the weed. In open fields it is easily 

 exterminated by plowing and cultivation, but it keeps possession 



