96 BOAED OF AGEICULTURE. 



freezing. Turnips, however, will stand considerable frost, 

 and make their best growth quite late in the fall, " bottom- 

 ing," as it is called, after other roots have ceased to grow. 



It is probably the better way to dig potatoes as soon as 

 ripe, and to put them dry in a cool place, they are then free 

 from the ravages of the white grub and the wire worm, and 

 if secured sound and in good condition, less liable to rot than 

 if left in the field. 



Weeds. — The loss from weeds, though not one that can be 

 computed nor even guessed at, is undoubtedly very large, 

 and their growth a great hindrance to farming, a fact which 

 must impress itself upon every man of observation. How 

 many weeds seem to be flourishing on some lots in every 

 farm, while the roadsides are belted with them, and every 

 one exhausting the fertility of the soil and the strength of 

 the manure as much as any of the farmer's cultivated crops, 

 without rendering him any return ; scattering their pestilent 

 seeds in every direction, bringing the realization of a part of 

 the curse imposed upon the original cultivator at his fall. 

 Weeds are propagated both from the roots and the seed. 

 These last are generally the most troublesome as they are the 

 most numerous, though couch or witch-grass spreads from the 

 roots, every joint of which starts a plant. Much the same 

 in that way is " spurge," of the euphorbia family, introduced 

 as a garden flower. Gray says, but spreading from both 

 root and seed Avitli a rapidity, a tenacity and prolificacy be- 

 yond anything I had to deal with. 



The annuals and biennials are spread from their seeds if 

 allowed to stand till ripe. Noxious seeds are sold to us in 

 the grass and clover seeds we buy ; I am sure we pay for a 

 great deal of sorrel seed under the name of clover. At a 

 meeting of the Agricultural Association at New York, it was 

 stated that the average of poor seeds from Germany was 

 fifty-nine per cent. In a sample of orchard grass they found 

 seeds of no less than forty-five diflferent kinds of plants. A 

 pound of clover seed showed 14,400 foreign seeds, most of 

 them sorrel ; but there were seeds from 45 plants not clover. 

 Sowing land with such seeds means more than mere seeding 

 down to clover. Most of the annuals can be kept in check 

 by not allowing them to go to seed ; but the number of seeds 



