Description of the Bur doc}?. 133 



borders, on the sides of roads, and in waste 

 places generally, it is difficult indeed to 

 deal with this pest. Any plan that will 

 prevent it from maturing its seeds will in 

 time prove effectual, but several years will 

 probably elapse before the weed will be 

 fully banished from such places. 



(4) THE BURDOCK. 



The burdock (Arctium lappa) is so well 

 known and so easily managed, if the work 

 of destroying it is gone about properly, 

 that it would seem almost superfluous to 

 write about the modes that will prove effect- 

 ive for its extermination, yet there is no 

 denying the fact that the burdock is one 

 of the most general of the weed abomina- 

 tions which disgrace the farms of today. 

 It is a biennial, the leaves of which are 

 very large even in the early stages of the 

 growth of the plant. Its seed is borne on 

 a branched stem, which pushes up from 

 amid the center of the leaves to a height 

 of from two to five feet. The first year 

 of its growth, the burdock, being a bien- 

 nial, does not produce any seeds, but in the 

 second year it produces them in immense 

 numbers. The seeds are matured in 



