516 COMPOSITAE (COMPOSITE FAMILY) 



than ten to fifteen inches tall, will so damage the succulent tops 

 that the plants will not recover sufficiently to produce buds before 

 they are again cut with the grain. After harvest new plants sent 

 up by the rootstocks should be cut off with a broad-shared culti- 

 vator, the blades of which should be sharp and overlapping suffi- 

 ciently to cut everything before them. Subsequent fall plowing 

 will insure that the rootstocks get very little sustenance in that 

 year. In the next season a well-tilled and profitable hoed crop 

 should leave the ground clean of thistles and other weeds, and in 

 good trim for a spring grain crop barley or oats which should 

 be seeded with red clover. Waysides and waste places should 

 receive attention ; in these places the patches are best treated 

 with hot brine, caustic soda, or kerosene, killing all other plant 



growth as well but ridding the 

 ground at once of the prickly 

 pests. 



SCOTCH THISTLE 

 Onopdrdum Acdnthium, L. 



Other English names: Cotton 

 Thistle, Downy Thistle, Silver 

 Thistle, Queen Mary's Thistle, 

 Asses' Thistle. 



Introduced . Annual or biennial . 

 Propagates by seeds. 



Time of bloom : July to Septem- 

 ber. 



Seed-time: August to October. 



Range: New Brunswick and 

 Nova Scotia to Ontario, south- 

 ward to New Jersey and Ohio. 



Habitat: Roadsides and waste 

 places. 



Said to be the heraldic plant 

 of Scotland, but now probably 

 more abundant in its adopted 

 land than on its native heath. 

 Stems three to nine feet tall, 

 FIG. 357. Scotch Thistle (Onopor- erect, stout, branching ; the 

 dum Acanthium). x \. whole plant densely clothed all 



