QUACK GRASS 



297 



a hoe. After cutting, it is well to apply a handful of 

 salt, or a pint of strong brine, to each root. Gasolene and 

 carbolic acid are good substitutes for salt. 



217. Quack grass is also a perennial. It may grow as high 

 as five feet. Its roots are botanically fibrous rootstocks. 

 Its leaves are rough above and smooth below. The plant 

 ripens its seeds in July. If mowed and taken in with the 

 hay, the seeds may reach 

 the manure pile, to be 

 scattered later over the 

 farm. Quack grass seed 

 is fairly common in the 

 seeds of clover, timothy, 

 and alfalfa. It may also 

 be blown about by the 

 wind. 



When once estab- 

 lished, a small patch 

 spreads rapidly, not 

 merely by the seeds, but 

 even more by the long, 

 thick, many-jointed, 

 white rootstock, each 

 joint of which sends up 

 a new plant. Ordinary 

 tillage merely scatters 

 and multiplies these roots, even more rapidly than it 

 does those of the Canada Thistle. 



For both these pests prevention is better than cure. 

 Every precaution should be taken to prevent the presence 

 of seed ; and if small patches of the plant appear, they 

 should be destroyed at once by some of the methods de- 

 scribed under the treatment of the Thistle. For Quack 

 grass, on a large scale, such methods are especially diffi- 



PLANTAIN. 



