THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART XI. 671 



serious fault lies in its injury to stock from its sharp anus or beards, 

 which are exceedingly sharp and being recurved causes them to tena- 

 ciously adhere to the inner surfaces of animals' mouths causing often 

 very serious sores and sometimes death. Mowing at proper times is effi- 

 cient with both these plants but once cutting will not usually be enough 

 because all do not reach the right stage at once. 



Of the biennials such as burdock and bull thistles that store up nour- 

 ishment and a heavy roots system the first year, but no seed stalk, and 

 sending up that seed stock the second year, produce their seed and then 

 die will in most cases live three years or more, if by mowing they are pre- 

 vented from sending with their seed stock. In fact such cutting usually 

 induce them to branch out at the bone and send out several stalks instead 

 of one. I have often laughed quietly to myself when I noticed men using 

 a scythe on their burdock patches. Cutting the roots below the crown is 

 the proper remedy for this class of plants and my experience has been 

 that a tile spade was about the best implement for the purpose, and will 

 accomplish it quite rapidly with a proper degree of energy at the back 

 of it as a moving power. All of the ordinary thistles are readily removed 

 in this way, likewise burdock, mullein, etc., none of which should be al- 

 lowed to seed in any place on the farm or upon the highways adjacent. 

 One biennial plant that is camparatively a new comer but a very trouble- 

 some neighbor is the narrow leaved dock. While not troublesome in the 

 cultivated lands it is likely to be very troublesome in pastures, meadows, 

 waste lands, etc. Persistent mowing is the most feasable method of con- 

 trolling them. 



Like the annuals and biennials, the perennial weeds reproduce them- 

 selves from seed and therefore should not be allowed to seed, but here 

 we have a class of weeds that have the inherent ability to reproduce and 

 multiply, more or less abundantly without seed, after once being estab- 

 lished, and to destroy them the underground portions must be destroyed. 

 The most common and troublesome weeds of this class we have had to 

 contend with here, have been the wild morning glory, and crab grass or 

 quack grass. The last is not troublesome so far in our fields where a regu- 

 lar rotation is followed, though I believe they have trouble with it in some 

 of the eastern states in that way. I find it most pernicious in waste cor- 

 ners and in orchards not cultivated, etc. The former is troublesome where- 

 ever found. If abundant it is bad even in meadows of good timothy and 

 clover, and are especially bad in small grain, tangling it all up, decreas- 

 ing the yield materially, and making bad work with reaping and binding. 



Thorough cultivation accompanied with judicious use of the hoe, both 

 long continued will finally master them. I believe but am not sure that 

 sheep would destroy them if allowed the privilege of access to them dur- 

 ing the growing season. 



But a far more alarming and dangerous foe than these — aye than all 

 others — the bane of our eastern states and Canada, the ubiquitous Can- 

 ada thistle, is octupus-like, placing a tentacle here, another there and still 

 another yonder, in an insidious and quiet way, but some day we may 

 waken from our lethargy to find ourselves within the grasp of a resistless. 



