Weeds 



There is a Noxious Weeds Ac~t. in Ireland, under 

 which farmers have to keep their more dangerous 

 weeds down, but I understand it is largely a 

 failure, nor may a campaign be successful unless it 

 attacks at all points. It is far easier to sow weeds 

 than to hoe weeds. They are aclive, never tiring, 

 and mostly win the race, so that prevention, not 

 cure, must be attempted, and scattered attacks are 

 doomed to failure. 



(i) First we must penalize the merchant who 

 sells weeds in his seed, for it is possible to remove 

 them, although a costly process, so that at present 

 there is a difficulty in getting farmers to pay the 

 extra price. But if all seed was sold under an 

 enforced guarantee of cleanliness an enormous 

 step would be gained without detriment to either 

 farmer or merchant. Recently I saw an analysis 

 of a sample of clover seed sown by a neighbour, 

 showing 22 per cent impurity; thus he paid the 

 price of ioo lb. of seed for 78 lb. and had sown 

 22 lb. weeds, for which he had paid the price of 

 good clover seed. It would have been better and 

 cheaper to have sown three quarters of the quan- 

 tity of pure seed at a higher price and done with- 

 out the weeds. 



(2) We should either make it an offence for 

 farmers to sell one another seeds or seed corn with 

 weeds in, or instead trust to Clause 3 on the one 



77 



