262 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 



till they are taken out with the spade, though some- 

 times the frequent mowings exterminate them. 

 Spearmint disappears with cutting. 



Foxtail grass is really the vilest weed that 

 comes in alfalfa in the cornbelt region. It is an an- 

 nual grass that comes up each spring or some time 

 during the summer. It loves an alfalfa sod. Mow- 

 ing it does not destroy it, and it will seed if no more 

 than an inch high. Fortunately the se^ds readily 

 germinate and one can take advantage of this fact 

 to eradicate it practically the year before the alfalfa 

 is sown. If he will put the land to corn or some 

 other cultivated crop and so carefully cultivate all 

 the season that not one head of foxtail grass goes to 

 seed, the thing will be eradicated from that field. It 

 does not seem to have power to carry seeds over in 

 the soil as do so many weeds. They all seem to ger- 

 minate in one year if lying in the soil or in contact 

 with it, and if the seedlings are destroyed without 

 chance of maturing seed again that weed is eradi- 

 cated from that field. This has been the experience 

 of the writer and his brother on Woodland Farm, 

 where a 60-acre field once alive with foxtail grass 

 was made clean in one year except some places along 

 the margins where cultivation was not so thorough 

 as it should have been. In order to accomplish this, 

 however, one must go through the field with the hoe 

 at least twice after cultivation has ceased, else there 

 will be estrayed plants maturing seed to become cen- 

 ters of future infection. 



Yellow trefoil is a small, low-growing clover with 



