6 WEEDS OF THE FARM AND GARDEN 



smartweed) were formerly used in the process of 

 tanning. The tubers of the cultivated artichoke are used 

 as food, and the Indians usied the wild artichoke in the 

 same manner. The meadow sunflower was another plant 

 that furnished food to the Indians. Sweet clover is an 

 excellent bee plant, a good forage plant and a satis- 

 factory soil renovator. Dr. Millspaugh states that many 

 weeds possess good fertilizing properties. Weeds are of 

 value if, when added to the soil, they give looseness and 

 furnish a plant covering. Professor Bolley says : "The 

 plant growths, consisting largely of common weeds and 

 grasses which at once occupy idle land, keep it from be- 

 coming a useless dust bed and finally a mass of shifting 

 sand. In shiftless and improper crop rotation the weeds 

 and grasses which intervene may be looked upon as 

 savers of soil quality. Those with tap roots bring up 

 the substances from a greater depth than some of the 

 ordinary crops; and by their varied characters introduce 

 essential elements of proper crop rotation and in other 

 ways reinstate the humus of the soil, which, by poor 

 cropping methods, is often quickly removed. Under cer- 

 tain conditions large crops of weedy growths plowed 

 under by shiftless farmers produce conditions of green 

 manuring which, while not of the best type, are essential 

 in preventing an entire loss of humus." 



