500 XEW JERSEY AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 



facts making the galensoga partial to the dooryard and any flower-l^ed 

 that is neglected for a comparatively short time. 



It is, as before stated, an annual, and needs to come from seed 

 each season. With this in mind it is evident that, by keeping the 

 intruder from going to seed, the trouble will be lessened. The writer 

 has sometimes seen a gardener keeping the galensoga faithfully out 

 of the garden, while not far away it was seeding abundantly in a 

 piece of waste land. It does not root deeply, and the plants are 

 easily destroyed, but a long wet spell, with somewhat of inattention, 

 are sufficient for the weed to come boldly into evidence and quickly 

 mature its seeds. 



It will, perhaps, be a sort of comfort to. the persons who are troubled 

 with it in Xew Jersey to know that their friends and relatives in 

 Massachusetts or Alabama or Oregon are not out of reach of this 

 intruder, that has come up, in some unknown way, from a warm^ 

 distant country, and find, to our discomfort, a congenial abiding place 

 among our better plants. 



The Black Night -Shade. 



There seems to have Ijeen an unusual amount of the black right- 

 shade the present season, a fact that may be traced in large part to 

 the wet weather of the year. The weed in question is one of the 

 poisonous members of the family that furnishes us some of our lead- 

 ing truck crops, as potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants and red peppers,, 

 while among its ornamental members are petunias and matrimony 

 vine. The whole family is made up of plants that are most abundant 

 in the tropical countries, and with rank-scented herbage. 



Within the genus Solanum the black night-shade is closely related 

 to the bitter-sweet and is a first cousin to the horse-nettle and the 

 Texas-nettle, so that it is akin to some of our worst of weeds. It is 

 called the black night-shade (Solanum nigrum L. ) because of the 

 dark color of the berries when mature. 



One correspondent writes, under date of September 23d, 1903 : 

 "I found after' cutting some millet and going over the whole field 

 that there is deadly night-shade from one end to the other, enough 

 I should say, to destroy all the livestock in the State. Is the night- 

 shade poisonous to cattle when dry? Will it be necessary to plow 

 this field up and cultivate it for a year or two before growing any 

 more grass on it? Does the night-shade live over — that is, does the 



