228 DRY FARMING 



the drill has missed a strip and so few relatively where 

 no skips in seeding occur. This fact is of great signifi- 

 cance and should be appreciated by every grain grower. 

 If we can succeed in giving our crops a good "start", 

 particularly after having given the weeds a "set-back", 

 our problem will have been made much easier; and a 

 good even stand of grain with no skips or misses is 

 important for the same reason. 



Tar paper is sometimes used to smother Canada or 

 Sow Thistle when found in small patches. 



Hand Pulling. — Hand pulling weeds is expensive and 

 with labor at present prices is impracticable except on 

 small areas such as the seed plot, or as a preventive, 

 measure on relatively clean land. Where only a few 

 weeds are present in a field "an ounce of prevention" 

 is worth many pounds of "cure", and roguing a field 

 may be much less expensive than leaving the weeds to 

 multiply and to add to the difficulties of future crop 

 production, 



179, The Control of Annual Weeds.— The wild oat is 

 a typical annual weed, and incidentally, one of tlie 

 worst we have. 



The first and most important measure of control is to 

 stop sowing them, a measure that is easy to plan but 

 difficult to put into practice. 



The second is to prevent their introduction to the 

 farm in feed, in threshing machines, by wandering stock, 

 etc. 



The third is to prevent them from going to seed by 

 (a) double disking or plowing shallow early in the fall 

 so as to encourage germination and subsequent death by 

 freezing, (b) killing as many as possible in the fallow 

 year by disking after the first growth starts in the 



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