22 FARM W?:EDS of CANADA 



than apparently clean samples that contain a few seeds of Bladder 

 Campion or Perennial Sow Thistle. 



Commercial feeding stuffs usually find a better sale when 

 not too finely ground. The records of analysis of a large number 

 of samples of meals, manufactured principally from coarse grains 

 of various kinds, show that vital seeds of noxious weeds are 

 usually present. The ground screenings from grain used for 

 milling are a common ingredient of feeding stuffs. Many of 

 the small weed seeds contained in them will retain their vitality 

 until spread on the land with farmyard manure. Such small 

 weed seeds should be separated from the coarser grains by 

 screening, and burnt or finely ground apart from the grain. 



THE GRASS FAMILY (Gramineae). 



True grasses may be annual, biennial or perennial. They 

 represent the most widely distributed plant family, which 

 includes all our cereal grains and many valuable fodder plants 

 as well as some of our worst weeds. The native grasses indicate 

 to botanists the character of the soil and climate of the locality 

 where they are found, perhaps more than plants of any other 

 family. Numerous species are persistent in farm crops, but 

 only a comparatively few are characterized as noxious weeds. 



Grasses are tufted or "bunched" when numerous stems 

 rise from a single base or from short rootstocks, and creeping 

 when the rootstocks are long. Flowering stems and fibrous 

 roots are developed from the joints or nodes at the base of the 

 stem or along the rootstocks. 



The stems of grasses are usually herbaceous and hollow, 

 with thick, hard joints or nodes. In relatively few species the 

 stem becomes woody, as in the bamboos, or filled with pith 

 between the nodes, as in maize. The height varies from 

 the tall bamboo to the dwarf mosslike species found within the 

 Arctic Circle. 



