90 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



WEED CONTROL ON STATE HIGHWAY RIGHT OF WAY. 



By A. B. Fletcher, Highway Engineer, Sacramento. 



The removal of vegetation from the right of way of the state highway 

 is a task much like that given to Tantalus, one that can never be com- 

 pletely finished. The weeds may be entirely removed from the highway 

 and yet not on the adjoining fields, so that the following season the high- 

 way may produce a very rank growth from the weed seeds of the fields. 

 There are quite a number of weeds and grasses that are a benefit 

 rather than a detriment when growing along the cuts and fills and 

 shoulders of the highway. Often these same weeds are very undesirable 

 to the agriculturist and the highway right of way must not be allowed 

 to be a breeding place for such weeds. 



The total area of much of the right of way is approximately nine 

 acres per mile of highway. Of this nine acres about one-third is free 

 of weeds, due to the hard surfaced pavement and traffic. The remaining 

 six acres are in two narrow strips, roughly about twenty feet wide. 



In the removal of weeds a number of methods have been tried with 

 varying degrees of success. The weeds have been cut by mowers just 

 prior to the ripening of their seeds. This method is relatively rapid 

 and inexpensive. Its disadvantages are the accumulation of dried weeds 

 with the consequent danger of fire, difficulty of handling a mower along 

 such a narrow strip with guard rails, telephone poles, fences and culvert 

 head walls to be dodged, and finally the mower does not kill the more 

 sturdy weeds and the cutting back seems to make them almost more 

 vigorous in their growth. Hand scythes have also been used with much 

 the same results as with the use of a mower. 



In some sections the weeds have been grubbed out with grubbing hoes 

 and this method has resulted in the killing of the weeds for the season 

 but the right of way usually produces a new crop the following year 

 from seed from the adjoining fields. In this case also the dried dead 

 material is a fire menace to the farm fences, telephone poles and guard- 

 rails. 



Gangs of men have been employed to burn off the weeds as soon as 

 they were dry enough to be handled in this way, but labor of protecting 

 poles, fences and guardrails with wet sacks has made the method 

 expensive. Also the weeds when dry have usually scattered their seed 

 and if they are of a kind objectionable to the farmer the burning 

 method is likely to be utilized too late to be entirely satisfactory. 



There are so manv things that influence the cost of destruction of 

 weeds along the highway that any attempt to give the average cost 

 per mile for any of the methods described would very likely be mis- 

 leading. The irregularity of the surface of the ground with protruding 

 rocks or boulders may make mowing by machines almost impossible. 

 Thickly settled regions, in which improvements are found close to or 

 along the right of way, may make the burning of the weeds too great 



Each section of highway presents its own weed problem and in time 

 the cost data and results will prove what methods of destruction are 

 best. 



