CHAPTER XII. 

 WEEDS AND THEIR CONTROL 



Weeds are plants which interfere with the growth of 

 crops or lower the profits of farming or mar the ap- 

 pearance of the landscape. 



In a sense farming is a continual warfare against 

 these intruders, the contending forces being man and 

 crops on the one side and weeds on the other, with nature 

 a neutral onlooker, but one ever ready to lend her aid to 

 the side showing the greatest persistence. Most of our 

 important farm crops have largely lost the power to 

 compete with weeds. They have been so altered from 

 their original wild state by man that were they left to 

 themselves they would become extinct in a few years. 

 Our cropping methods must therefore be intelligently 

 directed if the fight for the profitable possession of the 

 land is not to be lost. 



There is no easy road to weed control. Nevertheless 

 a knowledge of the habits of weeds and the needs of 

 cultivated crops places a man in an enlightened position 

 in the struggle. It remains only for -him to create condi- 

 tions unfavorable to the one and favorable to the other. 

 Intelligent direction is much to be preferred over ill- 

 planned hard work. The chief difficulty is encountered 

 on old farms where the sins of the preceding generation 



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