USES OF WEEDS 189 



Agrimonia eupatoria (Agrimony). This has always had a 

 considerable reputation for medicinal purposes, and an infusion 

 of agrimony was employed by the peasantry of the south of 

 England for feverish colds. 1 The Canadians are also said to 

 have successfully used an infusion of the root in certain fevers. 

 During the war the fruits were used as a constituent of the 

 tea mixtures sold in Germany. The plant contains tannin 

 and has been used in Germany for dressing leather. It also 

 yields a good colouring matter which dyes wool bright nan- 

 keen if the plant is gathered when the flowers are beginning 

 to open, but if gathered in September the dye is darker. 2 



Agropyron repens (Couch-grass). Although this is such a 

 pestilent weed, it has great capabilities of usefulness if rightly 

 employed. From very early times its medical value was recog- 

 nised. Pliny claimed that it was useful for healing wounds, 

 and that poultices made from it prevented inflammation of 

 injuries. Gerarde also emphasised the healing powers of the 

 plant, and Culpepper 3 went so far as to say that " a physician 

 holds half an acre of them to be worth 5 acres of carrots 

 twice told over". Horses and cattle are particularly fond of 

 the rhizomes or underground stems. At Chedzoy, in Somerset, 

 in 1916, the couch grass that was cultivated out was thrown 

 into a stack, with the intention of using it for rick bottoms. 

 Cattle were turned into the field, and they made a raid on the 

 stack and rapidly demolished it, though the stuff was never 

 fed to them. 4 In Rome and Naples the rhizomes are washed 

 and mixed with carrots as food for horses. 1 They contain a 

 considerable amount of nutritive matter, similar in quality 

 and quantity to that in the ' potato, and this can easily 

 be extracted in the form of a starchy powder resembling 

 arrowroot, which is quite good for human food. During the 

 war a coffee substitute was prepared from the rhizomes, and 

 the latter were also dried and ground into flour. 



Apart from its feeding value, couch-grass is valuable as a 

 manure if made into a compost with lime, or burned, and 

 the ashes spread over the ground. The rhizomes can also be 

 worked up into paper, and although the quality is at present 

 not very good it is useful for rough work, and improvement 

 may be effected as experience is gained. 



1 Wilson, loc. cit. 2 Hogg and Johnson, loc. cit. 



3 Culpepper, " British Herbal ". 



4 Brenchley, W. E. (1917), " West Country Grasslands," your. Bath and 

 West and Southern Counties Society, XI, pp. 102-103. 



