WEEDS OF ARABLE LAND 85 



whom they are easily distributed. The whole plant is 

 very rough to the touch ; it is often chopped up and 

 fed to poultry. 



Cleavers is especially troublesome among cereal crops 

 on light, loamy soils, climbing among the corn, pulling 

 it down, and rendering harvesting difficult. The fruits 

 are found in samples of red clover, Italian ryegrass, 

 and seed corn, and care should be taken that they are 

 not in this way introduced to the farm. Percival says, 

 " In some of the worst cases we have seen the weed 

 was brought to the farm by dung containing the seeds," 

 and this source of contamination should be guarded 

 against. The seedlings (Fig. 21) are much like the 

 mature plants, and easily recognisable. The pest is 

 most conveniently eradicated by hoeing during the 

 spring months, and by surface cultivation generally. 



Corn Bedstraw (Galium tricorne With.) closely re- 

 sembles Cleavers, but is smaller and has more prostrate 

 stems ; the fruits are large, with no clinging hooks, and 

 are borne on slender recurved stalks. It is an annual 

 weed of cornfields, especially on chalk soils, from 

 Cumberland southwards, but apparently absent from 

 Scotland and Ireland (Hooker). The flowers appear 

 from June to October. It should be dealt with in the 

 same way as Cleavers. 



Field Madder (Sherardia arvensis L.) is a small, much- 

 branched prostrate annual, with stems 6 to 18 inches 

 long. The narrow, pointed, obovate-lanceolate leaves 

 are under an inch in length, and in whorls of four to 

 six ; the small lilac flowers, which open from April to 

 October, are 1 inch in diameter, in terminal sessile 

 clusters ; the two-lobed fruits are small and rough, 

 crowned by the erect, spiny calyx-teeth. 



Field Madder (Fig. 21) is often very plentiful in 

 cultivated fields, and occurs particularly on light sandy, 



