290 Bulletin 38. 



short sections with sharp piercing points that work into the lining 

 of the mouth and other parts of the digestive tract of animals. 

 This causes this pest to be very objectionable in alfalfa meadows, 

 where it approaches maturity just in time to be cut with the first 

 crop of hay. Its presence in alfalfa hay causes an annual loss of 

 thousands of dollars to the farmers of the Salt River valley. A 

 combined effort that would destroy the pest, or so reduce its num- 

 bers that it would no longer infest meadows and pastures, would 

 be worth a large sum to Arizona. 



To eradicate this weed will be no easy task, but much can be 

 done to check its spread and to decrease its prevalence. If all the 

 wild barley seed that is maturing this month were destroyed, there 

 would be much less of it next season. It would be impracticable 

 to destroy it all, but much of that growing along roads, fences 

 and ditches can be cut and burned. This is what every farmer 

 in Arizona should do. It will be useless to attempt to eradicate 

 it from fields, if that which grows elsewhere is permitted to ma- 

 ture and seed the fields. The heads, as has been stated, break 

 up into short sections that cling to animals, to clothing, or are 

 carried along by wind or irrigating water. To prevent this dis- 

 tribution of seed, it would pay a farmer to destroy the wild barley 

 growing along fences and ditches of his neighbors, if the latter 

 failed to do so. Every farmer should at least see that the public roads 

 adjacent to his lands are cleared at once of the seed now maturing. 



While seed destruction should be the present procedure, the 

 prevention of seed formation should be the aim during the com- 

 ing season. Plants are more easily destroyed when small than at 

 any time late in their development. As this grass is the principal 

 one that makes its appearance along fences and in other waste 

 places during fall and winter, all young grass should be destroyed 

 as rapidly as it appears, with whatever implement will best ac- 

 complish the desired result. In alfalfa fields the disc harrow is 

 the best implement for the destruction of the grass when young. 

 Running this implement over pastures and meadows one to three 

 times during the winter does much to destroy the wild barley, 

 and benefits rather than injures the alfalfa. 



A. J. McClatchie, 



Department of Agriculture ami Horticulture. 



