AN ESSAY 



ON DESTROYING WEEDS. 



BY ANDREW NICHOLS. 



The best and most economical means of destroying weeds, shrubs, 

 bushes, briars and all the tribe of plants out of place, which voluntarily 

 seize on our cultivated and uncultivated lands, stealing the fertilizing 

 properties of the soil and manures, — greatly adding to the toils of 

 the farmer, or lessening the products of his labor and his lands, — is 

 a subject of the highest interest to all interested — and who is not ? 

 in improvements of Agriculture. 



Weeds are either 



Annual, springing from seeds or bulbs, and existing one season 

 only. 



Biennial, produced from seed, requiring two years to perfect them 

 and dying the second year. 



Perennial, the root living an indefinite number of years, while the 

 top dies annually. 



And Shruhhy, where both root and top, at least some part of the 

 growth above ground, lives through the winters of several years. 



In order to ascertain the best means of destroying each, the nat- 

 ural history of each, not only of each class, but of each individual 

 species, must be carefully studied. The seed of some of them, it is 

 well known, will lie dormant in the ground for years, till it is stirred for 

 cultivation. Others never trouble us in tillage operations, but prove 

 injurious in grazing and grass lands alone. The most common an- 

 nuals that infect our tillage grounds, such as Roman Wormwood, 

 Pigweed, Charlock, &c., can be subdued only by the most thorough 

 weeding of the grounds tilled, for a series of years, in no one of which 

 must these plants be allowed to ripen seed on the premises. To 

 young farmers who till their own acres, we would say, declare a war 

 ef utter extirmination against the whole race of annual weeds. And 

 although the extra labor may not be fully repaid by the increased 

 crops of a few of the first years, you will be great gainers in the 

 end, if you spend your lives, or many years, on the same homestead. 

 Biennials must be treated in nearly the same manner. 



