THE SPINACH OR GOOSEFOOT FAMILY 53 



Injury: A leafy, gross-feeding, wide-rooting annual, which 

 crowds growing crops and gives a weedy appearance to farm lands. 

 The thick woody stems are troublesome when crops are harvested*. 

 The abundant seeds, somewhat like small, gray, flax seeds, are 

 found in grain from a few districts infested by this rank-growing 

 weed. It is therefore important that it should be prevented 

 from spreading from roadsides and waste places, as it has every 

 characteristic of an aggressive enemy. Like Lamb's Quarters, 

 it harbours injurious insects and fungus pests common to the 

 cultivated species of the same family. 



Remedy: Waste places should be made as clean as possible 

 and thickly seeded to grass; weeds should be kept cut until the 

 grass has taken complete possession of the soil. Infested fields 

 should be thoroughly summer-fallowed and the succeeding grain 

 crops treated with the harrow, as recommended for Lamb's 

 Quarters. Seeding to grass for five or more years will do much 

 to suppress this pest by destroying the vitality of the seeds. 

 Hand-pulling should be employed to prevent scattered plants 

 from maturing their seeds; a single plant is capable of producing 

 as many as twenty-five thousand seeds. 



The sixth help of Ground is, by W airing and Irrigation, which is in two manners; 

 The one is by Letting in, and Shutting out Waters, at seasonable tunes; for Water, at 

 some seasons, and with reasonable stay, doth good; but at some other seasons, and with 

 too long stay, doth hurt. And this serveth only for Meadows, which are along some 

 River. The other way is to bring Water from some hanging Grounds, where there are 

 Springs, into the lower Ground, carrying it in some long Furrows; and from those Furrows, 

 drawing it traverse to spread the Water: And this maketh an excellent improvement 

 both for Corn and Grass. It is the richer, if those hanging Grounds, be fruitful, because 

 it washeth off some of the fatness of the Earth; but howsoever it profiteth much. Gener- 

 ally where there are great overflows in Fens, or the like, the drowning of them in the 

 Winter, maketh the Summer following more fruitful: The cause may be, for that it 

 keepeth the Ground warm, and nourisheth it. But the Fen-men hold, that the Sewers 

 must be kept so, as the Water may not stay too long in the Spring till the Weeds and 

 Sedge be grown up ; for then the Ground will be like a Wood which keepeth out the Sun, 

 and so continueth the wet; whereby it will never graze (to purpose) that year. 



Bacon, Natural History, 1625. 



