135 
Tar Krutrnc or Mustarp anp OTHER Noxtous WEEDS IN THE 
Grain Fietps or SoutH Dakota. 
By IE. W. OLIveE. 
To the best of the writer’s remembrance, mustard, though abundant 
enough, was not considered some years back as a serious pest in Indiana 
grain fields. But throughout the great grain fields of the Northwest the 
situation is different. The traveler sees on every hand, during the month 
of June, field after field of grain absolutely yellow with the blossoms of the 
common wild mustard. The fields sown to cereals are often enormous in 
extent; it is not an uncommon sight to see a quarter-section or even a 
section sown to one crop of wheat, barley, oats or flax. Only small areas 
b] 
here and there bear what we call “cultivated crops.” Cultivation cannot 
therefore hold in check troublesome weeds as is done in the smaller farms 
of the older States. Hence the great abundance of the yellow pest through 
the older parts of the Dakotas is actually startling to a stranger from In- 
diana or Illinois. 
One large land-owner in an effort to rid his ranch of mustard, two 
years ago spent a hundred dollars in pulling the weed. A year ago he 
doubled his expenditures in this work; but had-.to acknowledge finally 
that it seemed as though no matter how careful and clean his methods of 
farming, for years to come he might have to continually increase his ap- 
propriation in geometrical ratio before he could ultimately hope to conquer 
the pest. 
It may be of some interest to the members of the Academy to hear : 
brief account of some of the experiments conducted by the writer during 
the past summer in trying to eradicate mustard and other weeds in grain 
fields. Similar experiments had already been performed in North Da- 
kota, Canada, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and other western States, so that 
the results obtained in South Dakota are in the main corroboratory. 
The method, in brief, is this: The grain field is carefully gone over 
with a traction spraying machine, and sprayed thoroughly with a strong 
solution (about 20 per cent.) of iron sulphate (or copperas). The ma- 
chine used in our experiments covered a swath about twenty-five feet wide 
and threw a very fine and powerful spray, under a pressure of from 80 
