PREFACE. 



"Tou^h thistles choked the fields and killed the corn, 

 And an unthrifty crop of weeds was borne." Drifdcn. 



Long has it been said that ' ; An ill weed grows apace," yet few 

 are the books that tell us how to check that growth. The wild 

 plants which dwell most closely with us, those with which we are 

 most familiar, are many of them ; ' weeds," yet of them and their 

 history we know but little. Whence came they? How did they 

 get here? What, if any, are their uses? What is their place 

 among other plants in the great scheme of Nature? How can we 

 best control or get rid of them? Those are the questions which 

 we endeavor to answer in this book on Indiana weeds. 



By the U. S. Department of Agriculture it has been estimated 

 that to crop and meadow lands weeds cause an average annual 

 loss of one dollar per acre. As at least two-thirds of the area of 

 Indiana is comprised of such lands it follows that the annual loss 

 in this State is $15,509,330 from weeds alone. This great loss 

 falls almost wholly upon the farmer, and it is for him, therefore, 

 that this book has been especially written. In the simplest man- 

 ner possible we have endeavored to describe the worst weeds of 

 the State, show their place among other plants and give the most 

 practicable methods for their control or eradication. 



While the average farmer spends most of his years in fighting 

 weeds, he knows too little about them. A man is not considered 

 much of a carpenter unless he knows the different kinds of lum- 

 ber and the uses to which ^acli can best be put ; nor can he be- 

 come much of a printer unless he gets acquainted with the dif- 

 ferent forms of type and learns how best to set them for the most 

 effective display. "Why, then, should not the farmer strive to un- 

 derstand the true character of each of those plants which it is his 

 especial duty to either cultivate or extiq^ate? The close study of 

 soils, fertilizers, weeds, live stock and other factors of the farm 

 is rapidly raising the science of husbandry to a plane where it is 

 no longer regarded as irksome drudgery, but as one of the highest 

 callings of a free and intellectual people. Just as the old Roman 



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