AFTER-CULTURE. 137 



fibres are compelled from the start to struggle through 

 a hard, compact, and neglected soil. All the tillage, 

 however, that can be given with safety, and all that 

 the earth really needs, in order to keep it aerated, and 

 to prevent the growth of weeds, it must have. 



There is no greater enemy to the maize-crop than 

 weeds ; and it is even doubted by some whether all the 

 other enemies of this cereal combined accomplish so 

 great an amount of mischief as these spontaneous and 

 all-pervading pests of husbandry. They are sometimes 

 kept out of the cornfield by precautionary measures, 

 if these are early adopted ; but this cannot always be 

 effected with certainty. There are certain fertilizers 

 that have a favorable tendency in this direction, and 

 especially common salt, which, on some lands, produces 

 the twofold effect of increasing the crop and check- 

 ing the growth of weeds. But when, in spite of all 

 the precautions that can be employed, these plagues 

 and persecutors of the soil obtrude themselves into 

 the cornfield, they must be dealt with promptly, at 

 whatever sacrifice. They must be extirpated at once, 

 even if it is done at the risk of some damage to the 

 roots of the grain. The growing corn can better afford 

 to encounter the possible loss of some portion of its 

 roots, than to endure the presence of these greedy 

 interlopers, that swarm into the field, only to rob the 

 soil of its nutriment, and to exclude from it the genial 

 sunlight. 



The germs from which this infinite variety of 

 weeds annually and spontaneously springs, are not the 

 product of a single season, but doubtless the gradual 



