434 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The address closed with the follo\viu2: general hints in regard to the extirpa- 

 tion of weeds. In the lirst place it is of great importance to use only clean 

 seed. In this respect not enough care is taken. New and troublesome varieties 

 of weeds are often introduced on farms in grass seed or small grains. Seed 

 which seems to be reasonably clean and pure when submitted to critical exam- 

 ination will often be found to contain foul seeds in considerable ([uantities. 

 Better pay a full price for absolutely pure seed, and be to considerable expense 

 in separating foul seed from seed grain, than sow seed which will cause such 

 endless labor in the future. 



As another point to be observed, use every effort to prevent weeds from 

 maturing their seeds. From the figures I have given, showing the immense 

 number of seeds which a single plant will iiroduce, you see the importance of 

 ''nipping them in the bud."' 



Again, weeds which have gone to seed should never be plowed under. They 

 should be burned. Plants, the seeds of which do not seem to be ripe enough 

 to grow, will often have sufficient vitality to mature the seeds after they are cut 

 down, hence they should not be composted. 



Speaking of plowing under ripe weeds, I am reminded of what I saw in 

 Michigan a few years ago. Pigeon weed or pigeon grass is a very noxious weed 

 in that State, and yet I remember seeing farmers plowing large fields of that 

 weed under, when by so doing they were simply filling their soil Avith the pest. 

 "When the soil is stocked with seeds they stay there to come up year after year, 

 as they get near the surface or meet the conditions of germination. I knew of 

 a little piece of ground on which tobacco plants were permitted to go to seed. 

 For ten years afterwards plants came up every season from this one seeding. 

 The eleven weeds native to this country arc mostly familiar ones, and are known 

 as the dandelion, quack grass, wild pepper grass, flea bane or white weed, five- 

 finger, yarrow, rag weed, yellow rocket, fire weed, beggar ticks or blue marigold, 

 and Eudbeckia, for which no general popular name is given. 



"PUSLEY." 



''As mean as pusley " is as appropriate a comparison as I know of. It develops 

 in a night from a seed to a weed, and if left for a few days without disturbance 

 it seems to have more lives than the proverbial cat. It will grow wrong side 

 up; it will grow if tlirown on the grass, and in moist weather it will grow if 

 hung up on a rail. There are no two ways to fight this miserable pest, with any 

 success. The only feasible metliod is to take it as soon as it germinates. G-round 

 in which purslane seed has become a large component part, should be raked 

 over everv fourth or fifth dav, whether any weeds arc in si^rht or not. It seems 

 like a large expenditure of labor, but when we calculate tiiat b}' doing this we 

 can accomplish five times as much as if we left it throe weeks, we can see 

 economy in it after all. And again it is not safe to leave it many days, because 

 in hot weather it will be born one day and in a week ]kiss the period of puberty, 

 in ten days develo}) seeds that will germinate and form a generation 1,000 times 

 as numerous as the first. Yes, I have estimated with care the production of 



