WEEDS. 301 



slane begins to produce seed almost as soon as it has 

 any top, so that it is often well nigh impossible to pre- 

 vent seeds being formed. 



Eradication. — Weeds may be eradicated, but 

 with our present system of farming, complete exter- 

 mination is [not practicable, certainly not essential to 

 successful agriculture. Along the Mediterranean coast 

 farmers are known to have fought the same weeds for 

 three centuries without one species having been era- 

 dicated. 



To eradicate certain kinds of weeds, often the most 

 pernicious kinds, and to keep all kinds in subjection, 

 is both possible and feasible. The more intensive the 

 farming, the more completely this may be done. 



With annuals, the prevention of the plants from 

 seeding, the destruction of the seed in the soil, and 

 the prevention of the introduction of seeds from out- 

 side sources, is all that is necessary. The reason for 

 the difficulties will be understood from what has gone 

 before. 



Clean culture is the chief essential to success. It 

 kills the weeds which are growing on the land, and 

 hastens the destruction of the seeds in the land by 

 causing them either to grow or rot. One great diffi- 

 culty is that all the land is not, and can not be brought, 

 into cultivation. Waste places, hedges and fence rows 

 produce weeds abundantly. A tumble weed grows 

 along a fence row. A crop of oats, perhaps, is har- 

 vested and the land plowed. On a windy day, the 

 tumble weed loosens anchor, and freighted with 100,- 

 000 seeds, goes rolling across the land, literally sowing 

 destruction in its path. A thistle in a hedge, or a bur- 

 dock in the corner of a cornfield visited by cattle, are 



