160 WEEDS OF FARM LAND 



which, owing to a deficiency of lime in the soil, spurry is ramp- 

 ant. Such soils are sometimes loaded with buried spurry 

 seed, and if the season be favourable to the germination and 

 early growth of the plant it comes up strongly in such 

 enormous quantities that no amount of cultivation, short of 

 hand pulling at great expense, is able to remove sufficient 

 of it to prevent it from becoming a most serious competitor 

 of the crop. Even when it is possible to make a fair clearance 

 some parts of the fields always seem to defy all efforts and 

 grow crops of spurry instead of corn, thus reducing the profit- 

 able crop and causing a considerable monetary loss. On less 

 acid soils of light types the poppy behaves in much the same 

 way, but as this weed grows upright instead of sprawling over 

 the ground it gives the crop a slightly better chance. The 

 time at which the crop is sown and the nature of the growing 

 season have a great effect upon the variety and abundance of 

 weeds. Autumn sown wheat germinates, makes a little 

 growth, and then waits until the following spring before it 

 makes much headway. Many of the weed seeds germinate 

 very freely in the autumn, seedlings grow up among the 

 wheat and are well established by the spring. Cultivating 

 between the drills removes many of them at that time, but a 

 very considerable proportion remain to come into competition 

 with the wheat. Charlock, for instance, holds its own in the 

 drill, and it is quite usual to see fields of wheat flaming yellow 

 with charlock in the spring sunshine. If the wheat gets a 

 good start it will grow so rapidly that it overtops the weeds, 

 and by depriving them of light keep them under to a great 

 extent. If the season be unfavourable, however, wheat and 

 weeds have to continue in competition, with the result that the 

 wheat plants suffer from overcrowding and the crop is short. 



It is much more easy to cope with the weeds when corn 

 is sown in the spring. The land is laid up roughly in the 

 autumn and multitudes of weed seeds germinate and begin to 

 flourish, only to be turned under and destroyed when the land 

 is ploughed in the spring previous to sowing. If two or three 

 ploughings are given before sowing, more and more of the 

 weed seeds are thus put out of the way of doing harm. When 

 the crop is sown it grows straight away after the seedlings are 

 up, and unless the weather is exceptionally droughty there is 

 no check t development. The weed seeds begin to germinate 

 as well but they have little chance among the crop, as before 

 they get a good foothold the crop plants are so lusty that the 

 weeds are injured by competition in a very early stage of 



