CHAPTER IV 



WEEDS OF ARABLE LAND 



" In the later ende of May is tyme to wede thy corne." 



JOHN FITZHERBKRT, Boke of Husbandry, 1523. 



A VERY large number of wild plants occur as weeds in 

 arable land, and it is in such positions that weeds are 

 generally held to be most troublesome. As has already 

 been stated (p. 27), the author found no less than 1050 

 individual young plants on a square yard of good 

 garden soil after leaving it unhoed for a short time. 

 Yet, as we shall see in a subsequent chapter, very many 

 weeds are extremely harmful in grass land, w r here they 

 may occur in plenty and sometimes occupy the land 

 almost to the complete exclusion of good grasses and 

 clovers. 



The small extent to which a cultivated crop can 

 compete with weeds has been shown at Rothamsted, 1 

 where a plot of wheat which was allowed to shed its 

 grain and reproduce itself in subsequent years without 

 any kind of cultivation or help against weeds was 

 found in the second year to produce only about half 

 a crop, less the next year, and only two or three 

 stunted wheat plants in the fourth season, after which 

 the wheat disappeared entirely a literal case of a crop 

 being " smothered by weeds." Instances are known to 

 every farmer in which a vigorous fight against weeds 

 has had to be waged in order to raise a successful crop 

 of corn or roots (see examples, p. 15). We may now 



1 A. D. Hall, The Book of Rothamsted Experiments. 



49 D 



