THE IERIGATION AGE. 



1027 



responsibility as well as the individual concerned, and not 

 only strengthens the organization, but gives the secretary 

 assurance that the men for whom special favors are asked 

 are worthy of consideration and thus obviates any impos- 

 sible injustice to deserving individuals. 



SOME PRINCIPLES OF WEED CONTROL. 



Weeds may be roughly divided into two classes: those 

 which grow and spread entirely from seed, and those 

 which, in addition to this, propagate by means of peren- 

 nial roots or underground stems. The first class is made 

 up largely of annuals, plants which start from seed, pro- 

 duce flowers and ripen seeds the same season, after which 

 the whole parent plant dies. The pigweeds, tumbleweeds, 

 marsh elder, wild sunflower, and mustard are examples of 

 such weeds. They are best controlled by rooting them up 

 when young, as in hoeing, cultivating, pulling by hand 

 and, in some cases, by chemical sprays. To prevent their 

 going to seed is the principal thing. 



In the second class are found the poverty weed, iron 

 weed, Canada thistle, and field morning glory. Such 

 plants, when once established, are very persistent and con- 

 stitute our worst weed pests. When cut off or pulled up, 

 new sprouts soon appear from the underground parts, 

 while cultivation in the ordinary way often serves to scat- 

 ter pieces of the plant to other parts of the field where 

 they may take root. The only remedy consists in digging 

 out and removing every part of the plant, in choking it out 

 by means of some stronger growing crop plant, such as 

 alfalfa, or by starving the underground parts of the plam. 

 The last method is accomplished most frequently by care- 

 ful and constant hand hoeing and pulling, on small areas, 

 supplemented by thorough cultivation on large areas. To 

 be effective this method requires that every sprout which 

 comes above the surface be cut off, or pulled, or otherwise 

 destroyed. 



The food of such plants is manufactured in the leaves 

 that come to the light, hence if every sprout is cut off 

 before the leaves have time to get to work, it is merely a 

 question of one or two seasons until the underground 

 parts are no longer able to put up new sprouts. 



Anything that kills the foliage will also accomplish 

 the same thing. Unfortunately most of these plants are 

 not greatly injured by chemicals other than those that are 

 poisonous also to animal life. 



Turning the infested area into a sheep or hog pasture 

 for two or three years, especially if the animals are some- 

 what crowded, has been found effective in some cases, such 

 as land infested with the field morning glory. 



In any case persistent, thorough work is necessary to 

 success in eradicating weed pests of this character, and 

 the best time to begin is just as soon as the weed is dis- 

 covered and before it covers large areas. 



B. O. LONGYEAR, 

 Colorado Agricultural College, Fort Collins. 



ful silver cups and trophies for the best products of the 

 three states. 



The show will be advertised in all the local newspa- 

 pers and on billboards and various lines of novelty adver- 

 tising. Special lithographs of various sizes are used and 

 bill posters cover all the country territory, as well as city. 

 The people in the Pittsburgh territory are looking forward 

 with great interest for this big event. 



STATISTICAL RECORD OF THE DEVELOPMENT 

 OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Seven hundred and fifty pages of solid figures unac- 

 companied by text discussions other than explanatory 

 notes, form a rather uninteresting looking volume issued 

 by the Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Com- 

 merce and Labor, entitled "Statistical Abstract of the 

 United States," yet this annual volume, the thirty-third 

 issue of which has just made its appearance, is called for 

 by thousands of people in every part of the United States, 

 and in fact in every part of the world. It tells of the area, 

 natural resources, and population of the country from the 

 adoption of the constitution to the present time; agricul- 

 ture, forestry, and fisheries; manufacturing and mining 

 industries; occupations, labor, and wages; internal commu- 

 nication and transportation, merchant marine and ship- 

 ping; foreign commerce, internal commerce, commerce of 

 noncontiguous territories; prices, consumption estimates, 

 money, banking, and insurance; wealth and public finance; 

 the civil service, army, navy, pensions, congressional ap- 

 portionment, the presidential elections; the statistical rec- 

 ords of progress of the United States from 1800 to 1910; 

 and closes with a few pages devoted to commercial, finan- 

 cial and monetary statistics of the principal countries of 

 the world. It is compiled by the Bureau of Statistics, in 

 part from its own data of commerce and transportation, in 

 part from data gathered by other governmental organi- 

 zations. 



THE PITTSBURGH LAND SHOW TO BE AN AN- 

 NUAL AFFAIR HEREAFTER. 



The phenomenal success of Pittsburgh's big land show 

 last year has encouraged the management to make it an 

 annual affair. The show ran for twelve days and nights 

 last year and had an enormous attendance of over 180,000 

 people. This year the time has been extended to fifteen 

 days. 



The exhibitors at the show last year found that the 

 people in the Pittsburgh district were eager for the infor- 

 mation to be distributed by the exhibitors. On account 

 of no state or county fair in the Pittsburgh district, the 

 land show had an enormous attendance of farmers, and 

 all of the exhibitors were more than pleased with the re- 

 sults. Many of the same exhibitors will be found in the 

 show this year. 



Duquesne Garden is a building well adapted for land 

 shows and is in a location easily reached by the many big 

 trunk lines of the street railway system. 



There is a big contest on between the farmers of the 

 three states, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, and 

 the management of the land show is offering fifty beauti- 



VISITORS FROM NEW SOUTH WALES. 



Neil Neilson, minister of lands in the New South Wales 

 cabinet, will come to the Pacific slope country early in Sep- 

 tember to make a thorough investigation of the various 

 systems practised in the irrigation states, according to ad- 

 vices received by the Spokane Chamber of Commerce from 

 Sidney. 



Mr. Neilson plans to visit many districts in Wash- 

 ington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, 

 Wyoming, South Dakota, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Ok- 

 lahoma, Colorado and New Mexico, also the government plants 

 in Nebraska and Kansas, going thence to Chicago and New 

 York. He will confer with the Australian authorities in 

 London and visit the principal cities on the continent. 



Percy Hunter, vice-president of the Hands-Around-the 

 Pacific club, who is slated for under secretary of New 

 South Wales, has come to the Northwest on a similar mis- 

 sion as director of the New South Wales Immigration and 

 Tourist Bureau, to which position he was appointed by Sir 

 Joseph Carruthers, prime minister of New South Wales. 

 He also contemplates visiting various parts of the United 

 States to familiarize himself with irrigation methods. 



Mr. Hunter was interested in the Inland Empire by 

 Victor M. Smith, auditor of the Spokane Chamber of Com- 

 merce, while making a tour of the Pacific island. Mr. Smith, 

 who will accompany the Australian through several states, 

 says in a letter to JR. J. Maclean, secretary of the local com- 

 mercial organization : 



"Australia plans to do everything possible to promote 

 a better feeling between the two countries and to improve 

 our trade relations. The trip undertaken by Mr. Hunter, 

 who, by the way, was formerly a newspaper writer at Sid- 

 ney, is important in many ways." 



The Missouri Texas Land & Irrigation Company, of 

 Houston, Texas, capitalized at $1,000,000 recently filed 

 its charter with the Secretary of State. The corporation 

 is to operate in the Brownsville country. The incor- 

 porators are H. P. Hilliard, of St. Louis; Henry L. Bor- 

 den, of Houston, and R. L. Betts, of Austin. 



