802 



WEE 



THE UNIVERSAL HERBAL; 



WEE 



Wood Sorrel. See Oxalis Acetofella. 



Wood Spurge. See Euphorbia Amygdaloidcs. 



Wood Sage. See Teucium. 



Wood Vetch. See Vicia Sylvatica. 



Wood-peasling. See Orobus Sylvatica. 



Yarrow. See Achillea. 



Weeding. It is needless to state the obvious utility and 

 indispensable necessity of this practice ; the means of effect- 

 ing which are divided into those methods of destroying 

 weeds, while preparing the soil for the seed, and such as are 

 necessary to remove them from among a growing-crop. In 

 the former method, a distinction must be made between root 

 and seedling weeds, which require different modes to remove 

 them : for instance, much labour and expense may be saved 

 by drawing up all the seedling weeds before they have sown 

 their seeds. In gardens, where weeding should be particu- 

 larly well performed, much may be effected by properly ridg- 

 ing or laying up the ground before the winter sets in, and by 

 breaking it down again early in the spring, laying it level for 

 the crop, for this treatment will greatly diminish the seedling 

 weeds. Their seeds are, however, often brought by the wind, 

 or introduced by using the dung of hogs and horses as 

 manure, which, as well as the stable litter, often contains 

 seeds that vegetate as soon as put into the ground. This 

 shews that raw dung is improper for gardens, where it is 

 generally used to the great expense and trouble of the culti- 

 vator. Some gardeners principally use the spade and three- 

 pronged fork, for bringing out root weeds. Common hoes 

 are employed for scuffling over the surface, and the triangular 

 kind for cutting up weeds, moulding up and clearing grow- 

 ing plants, and loosening the surface of the ground for pro- 

 moting the sprouting of any seeds that may be present, and 

 for many other useful purposes. To these the scufflcr is 

 sometimes added in large gardens, for working over the sur- 

 face of the land; but in the small planted boad-cast sown 

 crops, the weeding can only be well accomplished by the 

 hand. In order to destroy weeds in tillage lands, especially 

 where the ground is greatly over-run with them, a complete 

 winter and summer fallow will be necessary. Rib-fallowing, 

 before the setting in of winter, is recommended to prepare 

 the soil for parting freely with the vivacious roots ; the plough- 

 ing and harrowing, requisite to tear them up, when the spring 

 drought commences, will cause the inactive seeds to vegetate 

 after rain, and they may be destroyed as they appear. Re- 

 peated turnings during the summer will cause them to rise, 

 and be destroyed, while the roots which lie beyond the reach 

 of the plough will be impaired in vigour, not being allowed 

 to exercise their vegetative powers. When winter Wheat, 

 or any crop intended to stand throughout that season, is 

 intended to be sown in such ground, it would be best to 

 sow it in drills, that by stirring the intervals in the ensuing 

 summer, the tendency which most soils have to condense or 

 consolidate too much, when greatly pulverized or reduced 

 in their parts, may be counteracted. If spring seed be in- 

 tended, the last ploughing should be given to the land before 

 the winter's rain commences, and the field be accurately and 

 fully surface or furrow drained, and laid dry. The influence 

 of the atmosphere, during the winter, will then bring them to 

 that due consistence, on which so much depends ; and the 

 soil, as soon as it becomes dry in the early spring, will be in 

 the best order for the reception of the seed at that time, 

 when the weeds will also be effectually destroyed. Where 

 ground has been under any tolerable management, drill cul- 

 ture will for the most part suit all the purposes of a clean 

 fallow, and free the land from weeds. In repeatedly turning 

 the intervals, most of the annual weeds may be attacked iu 



the group, and be expeditiously destroyed as often as they 

 spring up; while the roots of the perennial weeds will be 

 almost, if not altogether extirpated, by turning them up to 

 the heat and drought of summer. The rows should also be 

 hand-weeded, for which purpose the hand-hoe will be found 

 very useful. Drill culture may thus be partially exercised 

 with great advantage. Where alternate courses of tillage and 

 grass crops are adopted, in a course of three years' tillage the 

 second might always be in the drill manner; or if there were 

 manure to spare, to keep a field in good condition in tillage 

 crops for four years, both the second and third might be in 

 the drill method. The first on account of the turf or sward- 

 and the last for the sake of sowing the land down with grass- 

 seeds, would be more convenient in the broad-cast state: but 

 the weeding in these cases should not be neglected; the larger 

 weeds especially, and all those which are most prevalent, and 

 most productive of seed, should be taken out by hand- 

 labour, or some such means-, when they begin to flower. By 

 such strict care and attention to weeding tillage-laud and 

 crops, and stocking the ground with proper perennial grasses 

 when laid to rest, weeds would at length be so much sub- 

 dued as to be seldom injurious to the farmer. The seeds of 

 annual weeds being indestructible, there is only one mode of 

 extirpating them, which is to put the ground into such a 

 state as to induce them to sprout or germinate, and then .to 

 destroy the young plants by harrowing them up, or plough- 

 ing them under. This is strictly true ; but a writer on Agri- 

 culture thinks the ground should be ploughed before winter, 

 and not harrowed, it being better to lie rough through 

 that season, so as to have the greatest extent of surface pos- 

 sible exposed to the action and mellowing effects and in- 

 fluence of frosts ; and as soon as it becomes dry, in or about 

 March, it should be cross-ploughed and harrowed well 

 down ; many of the seeds and roots will then vegetate, 

 which should be ploughed under in proper time, and the 

 land harrowed again, and this sort of process be repeated as 

 often as necessary : this, it is said, is the true use and man- 

 ner of summer-fallow in this view, which, to have its full and 

 proper effect, should always, it is thought, be attended to 

 early in the season, when the powers of vegetation are the 

 greatest, and the heat of the sun is powerful ; as under such 

 circumstances the greater number of weeds will be brought 

 into a state of growth. It appears that the great defect in 

 the management of summer-fallows, so as to destroy weeds, 

 would be to neglect to work them early in the season, by 

 which omission the vigorous annual seedling weeds are not 

 brought into vegetation in due time ; as they will not grow 

 afterwards, until the following spring, but then appear in 

 such abundance as to choke the crops ; this is the reason, 

 why the Field Poppy, the Corn Crowfoot, the Tare, and many 

 other annual weeds, make such havoc among Wheat, when, 

 by a judicious early working of the fallow, they might have 

 been brought to exhaust themselves in the following summer : 

 for if no Wheat were sown, the seeds of these weeds would 

 often occupy the whole ground ; but as seeds can vegetate 

 only once, had this vegetation been brought on in the fallow, 

 and the plants afterwards been ploughed under in due time, 

 none could have appeared in the Wheat-crop. The Turnip cul- 

 ture is also supposed to be peculiarly adapted to the destruc- 

 tion of weeds, because for Turnips the ground must be in 

 early and fine preparation, by which the early weeds are 

 beforehand brought up and destroyed ; and any that remain 

 may be eradicated by hoeing. Wet weather is as necessary 

 as dry to give a summer-fallow its whole effect; for without 

 a soaking of rain after the land is pretty well pulverized, 

 numbers of the seeds of weeds will not vegetate, but remain 



