130 ELEMENTS OF FARM PRACTICE ' 



To Eradicate Annual Weeds. — Keep weed seeds out of 

 the soil and prevent the weeds that grow in the field from 

 producing seed. To accomplish this, the following meth- 

 ods will be found useful. Use only clean seed; that is, do 

 not plant the weed seeds. Seed the fields down to tame 

 grass for hay or pasture one or two years in every three to 

 six years. Plant the land to cultivated crops such as corn, 

 or potatoes, once or twice in every three to five or six years, 



Figure 57. — A crop of clover hay, a good thing to hold weeds in check, 



so that it may be cultivated and the weeds killed in that 

 way. In other words, clean seed and rotation of crops will 

 make it easy to control annual weeds. 



Biennial weeds are those that live^two years and then 

 die. The first year they start from seed and make part 

 of their growth. They live over winter, then the second 

 year complete their growth, produce seed and die. There 

 are but two common biennial weeds, bull thistle and burdock. 

 We believe every country boy and girl know these two com- 

 mon weeds. These two weeds do not cause trouble in cul- 

 tivated fields, but are very bothersome in old pastures, 

 along roadsides, and in waste places. 



To eradicate biennial weeds it is but necessary to keep 

 them from producing seed. The roots will die in two 

 years, so if no new seed is produced they will disappear. 

 If the land can be plowed and planted to corn or grain 

 for a few years, biennial weeds will disappear, as the plow- 



