"WEEDS OF MAINE. O-iS 



Canada thistles, daisies and dock can be eradicated with facility, 

 in comparison. * * * The seeds will remain in the ground a 

 lifetime without losing their vitality. We have cultivated a field 

 sixteen successive seasons, allowing no mustard to go to seed ; 

 but deep plowing brought seed to the surface the seventeenth year, 

 so tliat the ground was nearly covered with the young plants. * * 

 There are two things indispensably necessary to exterminate 

 mustard. One is to allow no seeds to mature ; and the other is 

 to cultivate such crops as will induce all the seed to vegetate, that 

 the plants may be destroyed. * * "When mustard comes up very 

 thick, harrow the ground thoroughly, as soon as the crop of grain 

 has been removed. After a few weeks have elapsed harrow it 

 again. This will destroy most of the young plants in the seed leaf. 

 After this use a cultivator instead of a harrow. These repeated 

 scarifyings will cover the seed and bring others to the surface, so 

 that a large portion vegetates and dies before winter. The next 

 season harrow the ground early in the Spring, so as to start a new 

 crop of seed. Plow it soon after the time for plowing for Indian 

 corn. Harrow again in about two weeks. After another fortnight 

 plow, and sow buckwheat ; as soon as the buckwheat is harvested 

 harrow the ground again. The next season manure well, and raise 

 a hoed crop ; and allow no mustard to go to seed. Next sow a 

 crop of winter grain. The mustard may now appear quite thick, 

 but none of it will have time to ripen before winter, when every 

 plant will die. A limited number of plants will appear the next 

 season among the standing grain. When they are in full blossom 

 let every one be pulled. A careful, faithful man will be able to 

 pull all the mustard in a day that will appear on several acres, 

 after the soil has been treated in the manner recommended. After 

 this any kind of grain may be raised. But for more than twenty 

 years mustard will come up every season, and must be pulled 

 before it ripens. This is the only way that our cultivatable fields 

 can be rid of this pestiferous plant. Incessant vigilance from year 

 to year will exterminate it effectually " 



If the Charlock, as well as many other weeds, be not extermi- 

 nated by the above method no blame can be laid to the cultivator. 



12. Black Mustard, Cosiirox M. — Brassica nigra. Root aDHtial. Stem three to six 

 feet high, smooth, much branched. Leaves petiolate ; lower ones large, lyrato and Ecab- 

 rous ; upper ones narrow and entire. Flowers yellow, arranged ^n elongated racemes.^ 

 Pods appressed to the rachis, about three-fourths of an inch long. 



A native of Europe, cultivated, or found in abundance in fields 



