344 CULTURE OF FARM CROPS. 



149. Onthe Weeding of Root Groins. Eoot crops are often 

 termed " fallow " crops, from the fact that grown as they are 

 in drills they afford vacant spaces, the soil of which can be 

 stirred up and cleaned from weeds, so that the land may be 

 having many of the advantages of a "fallow," while it may 

 at the same time be growing a crop. If, however, advan- 

 tage is not taken of the peculiarities of the mode of culti- 

 vating root crops, in stirring the soil between the rows and 

 effectually cleaning them of the encumbering weeds; it is 

 evident that many of the advantages are lost. That much 

 of the indifference which we see around us on the subject 

 of cleaning of land arises from ignorance of the subject of 

 weeds and weeding, we have deemed it likely that a para- 

 graph or two on it might be very useful to many who have not 

 hitherto paid much attention to it. 



150. " One year's seeding," says the proverb, "is seven 

 years' weeding." Those, therefore, if this is true, know 

 what they have to expect if they allow the seeding 

 a labour which their worst wishers may well wish them 

 to have, so difficult is it to perform. There is, indeed, 

 nothing perhaps so unmistakably suggestive than the fact, 

 too well known to farmers, that while crops will be poor 

 with all the pains which patient care bestows upon them, 

 weeds will revel in abundance despite all attempts to get 

 rid of them. In view of this it has been said, and there 

 is something very suggestive in the statement, that weeds 

 have been sent as a beneficent arrangement in order to make 

 men industrious ; and to exercise a reflex influence of a 

 positively beneficial kind, inasmuch that the more the weeds 

 are eradicated, the finer will be the crops, which otherwise 

 they would destroy. For it is worthy of note, that the 

 mere getting rid of weeds exercises a most healthy influence 

 upon the plants near which they grow, as the soil is stirred 

 about them, and the atmospheric influences are allowed to 

 act upon the crops. We have spoken of the evils arising from 

 one year's seeding ; but there are some weeds which pro- 

 pagate chiefly by their roots, others again by their seeds. 

 We shall consider the latter kind first. The seeds of 



