VIII. J WEEDS INDICATE POOR FARMING. 195 



these are the vital conditions, also, of successful agri- 

 culture, it may be said that weeds are never serious 

 when lands are well farmed. 



The converse of the above proposition is that the 

 serious prevalence of weeds is an infallible indication of 

 poor farming, and any one who has thought carefully 

 upon this subject must be compelled to accept the state- 

 ment. The agricultural conditions in the Dakotas and 

 other parts of our plains region are just such as to 

 encourage a hardj^ intruder like the Russian thistle. 

 An average of eight or nine bushels of wheat per acre 

 is itself proof of superficial farming; but the chief fault 

 AVith this western agriculture is the continuous cropping 

 with one crop, — wheat. "The methods of farming in 

 the northwest," says a recent bulletin upon the Russian 

 thistle issued by the Department of Agriculture, "are 

 particularly favorable to the distribution and growth 

 of the Russian thistles. Wheat after wheat, with an oc- 

 casional barren fallow but no cultivated or hoed crops, 

 gives little opportunity to clear the land of troublesome 

 plants." There is no method of permanently checking 

 the pest except better farming, — by which I mean not 

 •only cleaner tillage, but the judicious rotation of crops 

 and management of lands. I am looking to the Rus- 

 sian thistle, therefore, as the apostle of a new agricul- 

 ture for the northwest. If the statements of its per- 

 niciousness are true, it will certainly force the farmers 

 to adopt a different system of agriculture. Wheat must 

 be made a crop of a series, and other crops must be 

 found to supplement it; and with this change of front 

 will come all the benign results of a mixed husbandry, 

 — conservation of fertility and moisture, and a more 

 varied population. I am aware that the lands of these 



