312 WEEDS OF AGRICULTURE. 



the cultivation of dry-bottomed and deep black-mould lands, 

 I recommend short rotations of cropping between longer inter- 

 vals of grass lay. Nothing else can subdue the weeds, 

 which are so numerous and ramping in such soils. 



8. BLACK BINDWEED (poh/gonum convolvulus). 

 Climbing Buck-wheat. In some places called Bear- 

 bind ; but in the fens simply Bindweed, because such 

 land produces none of the perennial rooted species here- 

 after mentioned. Leaves heart-arrow-shaped ; stem 

 twining, angular; segments of the calyx bluntly keeled. 

 Annual. Flowers in June and September. 



This weed is too often a companion to the last: the same 

 soils grow it abundantly where it has got in by sowing, and 

 it runs to as great a length, getting above the corn that is 

 laid, and covering the crop by patches. 



The seeds are brown, triangular, hard, and smooth, and 

 quite as nutritious as buck-wheat. They are heavy, and 

 large enough to resist dressing, and in wheat samples are 

 objected to for the same reason as cockle. In oats they are 

 really no objection to the buyer, horses being very fond of 

 them. The farmer, however, has just reason to stand in 

 fear of this weed, from the destruction it brings to his crops, 

 and the injury done to the samples. 



y. SHEPHERD'S NEEDLE, Venus's Comb, or Needle 

 Chervil (saudi/x pecteii veneris). Called also Beggar's- 

 needle and Crow-needles. Fruit nearly smooth, with 

 a bristly -edged long beak; umbels simple, solitary, 

 or in pairs ; bracteas jagged ; petals inHexed at the 

 point. Annual. June, September. 



This is a bushy and troublesome annual in barley crops ; 

 the seeds are long and bent, of a rough texture and brown 

 colour. They are seldom seen in samples of wheat, being a 

 little too short of growth; but barley, being mown, must 

 necessarily be infested if they be in the crop, for no dressing- 

 can separate them. I was told in Hampshire that thej/ never 

 uHcd their liar tetj : but wliether their flinty and calcareous 

 soil be much suited to this weed, 1 do not know; certainly 



