FRUITS. 275 



tween the hills ; second, rye with clove/ sown in the spring, 

 and gypsum added when fairly up ; third, clover cut for hay, 

 or pastured, the latter being much more advantageous for 

 the land. 



WEEDS. 



Whatever plants infect the farmer's grounds, and are 

 worthless as objects of cultivation, are embraced under the 

 general name of weeds. In a more comprehensive sense, all 

 plants, however useful they may be as distinct or separate ob-^ 

 jects of attention, when scattered through a crop of other 

 useful plants to their manifest detriment, may be considered 

 and treated as weeds. Perfect cultivation consists, in having 

 nothing upon the ground but what is intended for the benefit 

 of the farmer ; and it implies a total destruction of every spe- 

 cies of vegetation, which does not contribute directly to his 

 advantage. 



In China and some parts of Flanders, the fields are en- 

 tirely free from weeds. This is the result of long-continued, 

 cleanly cultivation, by which every weed has been extirpa- 

 ted ; a scrupulous attention to the purity of the seed, and 

 the sole use of urine, poudrette and saline manures. This 

 object is scarcely attainable in this country, except on fields 

 peculiarly situated. The principal causes of the propagation 

 of weeds among us, is the negligent system of tillage and 

 the use of unfermented vegetable manures. By heating or 

 decomposition, all the seeds incorporated in the manure heap 

 are destroyed. But there is a great loss in applying manure 

 thus changed, after having parted with large portions of its 

 active, nutritive gases, unless it has been protected by a 

 thick covering of turf or vegetable mold during the progress 

 of fermentation. For many soils and crops, undecomposed 

 manures are far the most valuable. But they should always 

 be applied to the hoed crops, and such as will receive the at- 

 tention of the farmer for the utter extinction of weeds. A 

 single weed which is allowed to mature, may become 500 

 the following year, and 10,000 the year after. 



The cleansing of land from weeds, is almost the sole justi- 

 fication for naked fallows. When a large crop of them have 

 by any means obtained possession of the ground, they ought 

 to be turned into the soil with the plow before ripening their 

 seed, and they thus become a means of enriching rather 

 than of impoverishing the ground. Meadows which have 

 become foul with iiseless plants, may be turned into pasture ; 



