WEEDS AND WEED CONTROL 249 



spikes of bright-yellow flowers, is a common weed in some places. It may 

 be controlled by cutting the crown of leaves from the tap root with spud, 

 or hoe, in the first season of its growth from seed. Plants with capsules 

 fully formed should be burned. 



Wild Carrot (Daucus carota).- This is perhaps one of the most common 

 weeds in the eastern states, for in summer fields are white with its flowers 

 produced in large spreading umbels. The crowns of twice to thrice pinnate 

 leaves are produced the first season. Hand-pulling, as practised by some 



FIG. 105. Horse nettle (Solanum carolinense), a perennial weed. (Division of 

 Bot., U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.) (Reproduced in Pammel, L. H.: Some Weeds of 

 Iowa. Bull. 70, Experiment Station, Iowa State College, 1903, p. 316.) 



of the farmers on Nantucket, is a rude method of extermination, provided 

 the pulling is done before the fruits mature. Cutting off the leaf crowns 

 with the hoe is also efficacious. In cultivated ground when the cultivatoi 

 is used it gives little trouble, because it is usually uprooted the first season 

 of its growth, being a biennial. 



Viper's Buglcss (Echium vulgar e). This weed has established itself 

 in the limestone soils of the Lebanon, Cumberland and Shenandoah valleys, 

 where it is extremely common and troublesome, it is known, as Pater- 



