WEEDS OF AGRICULTURE. 303 



On this account, the darnel cannot be separated from 



the wheat by any of the machines we have in use for 



cleaning corn. Neither birds nor beasts choose this 



detested plant as food. It is excessively bitter, and if 



ground with wheat into flour and made into bread, it 



renders it not only unpalatable and unwholesome, but 



actually poisonous. 



It has been said, that, when harvested with barley and 



malted therewith, the l)eer made from such admixture is 



dangerously intoxicating. Such a mixture may have been 



sown and harvested in Italy or in Greece; but this could 



scarcely happen in this colder climate, as the darnel would 



not ripen with barley. But it has from the earliest ages 



borne the name of '^drunken darnel" and there can be no 



doubt of its deleterious qualities, whether in meat or in 



drink. 



We have often been plagued with darnel ; and the only 

 means we used was enjoining a duty upon the reapers, 

 binders, and barn-men, to collect it in small bundles for the 

 fire, for which a small reward was given. Its early 

 growth is so much like the wheat plants, that it cannot be 

 weeded out by the spud as other weeds are, and of course it 

 stands till reaped with the wheat. 



[There is another lolium, called loiiumai'vense, described in 

 old books under the English name of ^vhite darnel ; but this 

 is never hurtful among corn, and is only considered as a 

 variety, either of the perennial ray-grass, or of the true 

 darnel. Indeed, there is much confusion in the names of 

 these grasses among farmers. The seeds of darnel, and 

 those of the smooth brome-grass (bromiis secalinus ), are the 

 only two grass seeds found in wheat ; and these are indif- 

 ferently called ray or darnel by farmers, few being aware of 

 the difference, though they may be easily tested by the taste, 

 the one having the flavour of the oat, the other larger and 

 as bitter as gall. That farmers should be ignorant of what 

 darnel really is. cannot be wondered at, as it is quite evident 

 that neither Sir J. E. Smith, Mr. Holdich, nor Mr. Sinclair, 

 ever met with the plant in this country. — Ed.] 



