76 



young orchard. All efforts for its suppression tended but to 

 increase the evil. Finally the land was laid down to grass, and 

 the thistle has gradually disappeared, but it still remains rife in 

 the hedgerows and roadsides in the vicinity. 



To prevent its propagation by seed the plant should never be 

 permitted to flower, but should be continuously pulled up before 

 reaching that stage. The best time to effect this operation is when 

 the shoots are from 9 inches to a foot high, and the operators should 

 be provided Avith thistle gloves to protect their hands from the 

 prickles with which the plant is furnished. Pulling is preferred to 

 utting or hoeing because, if the operation is properly performed, 

 the shoots will break off at their junction with the rhizome or root- 

 stock, and if persevered in the rhizome will in time become blind 

 and have a good chance of perishing. When the hoe, or scythe is 

 used, the tops are cut at, or immediately below, the surface and the 

 plant soon pushes forth a new shoot and will continue to do so 

 everytime attacked, until late in the Autumn, when the upward 

 growth for the season would naturally cease. 



Although in theory it is held that if the leaf -growth of any plant 

 be prevented for a time, the plant will eventually die, in practice, 

 with some plants at all events, the time is so long that the theory 

 may almost be said to fail. With the plant -ander consideration, 

 especially if an old established one, the leaf-growth would have to 

 be kept in check for an indefinite period before the root-stock 

 would succumb. 



An instance of how some plants retain their vitality under adverse 

 circumstances is given in the Gardeners' Chronicle for May 18th, 1878, 

 where it is stated that a bulb of Psarum alexandrinm, Avhich had 

 been placed in the herbarium in 1839, and had thus had a rest of 

 35 years, had just been resuscitated by Professor Caruel of Pisa. 



As indicated by its second name of ' Avay ' thistle, the plant is 

 common in those localities and it is to such, in no slight degree, 

 that its extension is due. The farmer is interested in keeping his 

 land clean, for otherwise the crop would be seriously affected, and 

 he would be a loser by his own neglect ; but to waysides, hedgerows 

 and waste places he does not extend his operations, naturally 

 regarding them as out of his province, and thus it is that they 

 become neglected and are the source of much mischief. 



With reference to the soil on which the plant thrives best, 

 although it will be found on most, yet it prefers a sandy loam, 

 especially when this is in a state of cultivation. Being essentially 

 a Aveed of agriculture it flourishes on cultivated ground, or on land 

 that has been loosened to any depth. On pasture land it will 

 scarcely obtain a footing, as the seedlings, even supposing they 

 should appear, would be kept down by the stock. Too much care 

 cannot be exercised in the selection of seed. It is from Avant of 

 suflicient caution in this matter that many places become foul, as a 

 very fcAV patches of thistles, left to mature their seed in a crop of 

 grain, may be the source of irremediable mischief. It is pretty 

 certain that it AA^as in seed grain that the plant first found its AA\ay to 

 Canada, and thence to California and other parts of America. To 

 California the credit is given of having introduced it into Victoria 



