6 SaLE AND INTRODUCTION OF IMPURE AND INFESTED SEED. 
tice, it involves an enormous waste of humus and nitrogen, which, if pro- 
perly applied to the soil, would be of the utmost value. If the straw were 
cut into two lengths, and at once ploughed in after reaping, the soil would 
be correspondingly enriched, and the multiplication of weeds checked. The 
‘only really satisfactory method of dealing with the straw of cereals is, 
of course, to use it as bedding for stock, or chaffed with crushed oats, 
beans, &c., as food for stock, especially horses. The objection to this is 
that in large wheat-growing areas the amount of straw is far greater than 
can be consumed in this way under present conditions. Closer settlement 
will ultimately provide a use and market for the straw. When properly 
utilized and returned to the soil in the form of manure, weed seeds are 
very largely, and in many cases entirely, killed during the fermentation of 
the manures. Many of those with hard resistant coats are softened by 
the digestive juices, or by the ammonia produced during fermentation. The 
higher temperature to which they have been exposed aids their subsequent 
germination, and when ploughed in after the manure has been applied the 
-seedlings are destroyed. 
Factors of this kind make all the difference between foul and cleanly 
farming, and are of as great importance to a landlord as to a tenant. The 
latter, if he set himself to skim the cream off the land, could afford for 
several years profitably to pay double the rent possible to a farmer who 
attended properly to the cleanly cultivation and enrichment of the soil, but 
‘ultimately the landlord as well as the general public would lose greatly 
by the continued practice of such agricultural brigandage. 
The alarming spread of the St. John’s Wort through cultivated land 
in recent years is simply and solely the result of insufficient and imperfect 
cultivation. In England, where the plant has existed from time imme- 
morial, though fairly common, it is mainly found on hillsides, and gives 
no trouble on cultivated land. Ploughing and manuring easily keep it 
under, and good rotations are fatal to it. Along with many others of our 
proclaimed weeds, including all the annual ones, these have become dan- 
gerous simply because of insufficient cultivation, scattered settlement, care- 
less clearing, and the other factors already mentioned. 
Sate anD IntROoDUCTION OF IMPURE AND INFESTED SEED.—A very re- 
grettable feature in the spread of weeds has been the utter lack of control 
in regard’ to their introduction from abroad, and the way in which intro- 
duced and native weeds have been spread from district to district with 
impure agricultural seed. We frequently receive enquiries as to whether 
particular plants are worth while introducing, and, as often as not, the 
plants in question are either hopeless weeds or have some obnoxious pecu- 
liarity which renders their introduction inadvisable. In such cases the 
mischief is scotched before it has begun, but there is the strongest reason 
for believing that there are a number of unqualified persons continually 
introducing new plants, and allowing them to spread, without inquiring 
beforehand whether the plants are likely to be of use or not, or taking any 
trouble to eradicate them when the plants get out of hand. Very many 
such plants appear to be brought in as medicinal plants, though often 
highly: obnoxious or poisonous. St. John’s Wort appears to have been 
established in that way. A correspondent recently proposed to disseminate 
the Deadly Nightshade (Atropa Belladonna); another seemed to have a 
special fondness for the Dandelion; a third wished to introduce several 
troublesome English weeds which have not yet gained a foothold here, 
and the ‘‘work’”' of this kind which goes on out of our ken is probably 
considerable. 
