102 SOILS 



to the farmer's prosperity would be removed and 

 he could take a half holiday six times a week. 



Friendly Words for Weeds. In recent years there 

 has grown up an entirely different attitude toward 

 weeds on the part of some people. We are told that 

 weeds are a great blessing, not a curse. The reason 

 given is that if there were no weeds to kill, many 

 farmers would not cultivate their soil; hence the 

 other benefits of tillage saving moisture and set- 

 ting free plant food would not be secured as often 

 as they are now, when a multitude of weeds makes 

 it necessary to till frequently. We have also been 

 told that if a man cultivates his land as often as he 

 ought, in order to secure these other benefits of 

 tillage, weeds will not bother him much. 



Here, then, are two extreme views concerning 

 the warfare between man and weeds. One man 

 says that all that it is necessary to do is to cultivate 

 often enough to keep down weeds and the other 

 benefits will be secured in so doing. The other 

 man says that if the soil is tilled as it ought to 

 be in order to save water all the weeds will be killed 

 in so doing. Both are radicals. The fact is that 

 sometimes the soil should be stirred when there 

 are no weeds in sight; and sometimes weeds 

 are so bad that the soil must be stirred two or 

 three times as often as would be necessary 

 were we considering only soil moisture and plant 

 food. During a hot, muggy July, with heavy 

 thunder storms about every other day, the hoed 

 crops would not suffer for lack of water were 

 it not for weeds. Purslane, ragweed, crab-grass 

 and a host of other worthies luxuriate over the 

 ground, choking and stifling the crop and pumping 

 immense quantities of water from the soil. 



The chief way in which weeds injure crops is by 



