460 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Oct. 



FECUNDITY OP MVErED PLANTS. 



•'One year's eeedlng 

 Is eeven years' weeding." 



BEDS are un- 

 doubtedly de- 

 designed as a 

 blessing to 

 man. They cer- 

 tainly make la- 

 bor anecessity, 

 for they are as 

 tenacious of 

 life as a cat 

 that is required 

 to be killed nine 

 times before she is 

 fairly dead ! 



Few persons are 

 aware of the aston- 

 ishing fecundity of 

 most of the perni- 

 cious weeds which in- 

 fest our farms. 

 In some countries, 

 where large landed estates are held by single 

 individuals, and whose incomes are very large, 

 the most pains-taking investigations have been 

 made in order to learn what a single weed 

 plant is capable of doing in the way of propa- 

 gating itself. We have before us some of the 

 results of these careful investigations, and 

 from which we learn that a single coltsfoot 

 produces from 3000 to 22.500 seeds! The 

 wild mustard, 8000 seeds from a single plant ! 

 The chamomile, 40,000 ; the Mayweed, 45,- 

 000; the burdock, 24,000; the red poppy, 

 50,000 ; the wild parsley, 6000. 



All farmers have noticed the fine gossamer 

 which surrounds the thistle seed which is 

 borne up by the wind and carried aloft like a 

 tiny car. In this way, from a single plant, 

 10,000 seeds have floated away on downy 

 wings. Then there are weeds whose seed 

 pods burst open with violence, like the com- 

 mon garden balsam, so as to scatter the seeds 

 to a distance, where they will propagate new 

 plantations of their kind. On the other hand, 

 some plants have seeds supplied with deliciite 

 hooks to fasten in the soil ; others, again, 

 propagate slyly under the earth, as the crow 

 garlic, which produces 700 offshoots a year. 



The Irish Gazette states that the nodding 

 poppy or cockle plant have lessened the wheat 

 crop in that country by at least a tenth part 



of its value, and that "the weeds of Ireland 

 cost nearly six millions of dollars a year !" 



In England, experiments have been re- 

 cently made to ascertain the influence which 

 weeds have upon the growing crop. In one 

 instance several acres were sowed ; one acre 

 was measured and not a weed disturbed in it, 

 the other six were carefully weeded ; the un- 

 weeded acre produced eighteen bushels and 

 the weeded acres averaged twenty-two and a 

 half bushels per acre. In another instance, 

 the unweeded acre produced thirteen bushels 

 of barley, and the weeded twenty-eight bush- 

 els. A third, with oats, produced seventeen 

 bushels, and the weeded acre thirty-seven 

 bushels ! 



Should not some legal action be instituted 

 in a matter of so much importance to compel 

 people to abate a nuisance that not only robs 

 us of property, but of strength, and inciden- 

 tally, of life itself, in many cases ! Laws are 

 put in force to prevent the spread of small- 

 pox, and yet, if the toil, waste of strength, 

 discouragement, and annual loss by the prev- 

 alence of weeds could all be followed out 

 through their various influences, the weeds 

 would show by far the largest army of 

 martyrs ! 



Any reform in this matter, to be worthy of 

 the name, will be futile until we can purchase 

 pure seeds with which to sow our fields. The 

 fault in this particular is sometimes with the 

 farmer himself. He foolishly desires to pur- 

 chase cheap seeds, and finds some seedsmen 

 willing to oblige him. Seeds are thus mixed 

 often for purposes of fraud, as illustrated re- 

 cently in an article given on a similar sub- 

 ject. 



In an examination made and reported to 

 the Croydon Farmer''s Cluh, England, it was 

 found that as many as 1,920,000 plaintain 

 seeds were contained in a single bushel of red- 

 clover ! 



In other experiments, in a bushel of rye- 

 grass there were detected no less than 204,- 

 800 weed seeds. In a bushel of clover seed, 

 312,000; of linseed, 304,640; all this was 

 irrespective of dirt and particles of stone, 

 which make cheap seed by far the dearest. 



Let us urge, then, again and again, upon 

 farmers, the importance of extirpating the 

 weeds upon their own lands. It is useless for 

 one to keep his fields clean, while his neigh- 



