FINANCIAL LOSS DUE TO WEEDS 
WEEDs cause a direct money loss to the farmer and to the nation. 
‘In the first place, the presence of weeds in such abundance as to 
attract notice, reduces the selling value of the land. A prospective 
purchaser who sees meadows thickly spangled with Daisies and 
Buttercups or looks over fields golden-yellow with Mustard, red 
with Sorrel, or white with the lace-like bloom of Wild Carrot, 
mentally subtracts the cost of cleaning the soil of these pests when 
estimating his offering price. And this is as it should be; for before 
a profitable crop could be obtained from such ground, much careful 
thought and expensive labor must go to the subjugation of its 
enemies ; and the cost should very properly be borne by the neglect- 
ful husbandman who first allowed his land to be so abused. Rank 
growth of weeds may indicate fertility of the soil, and often the 
fitness of the ground for particular crops may be judged by the kinds 
of weeds found growing thereon; but, nevertheless, buyers are 
prejudiced and would-be sellers must submit to the embarrassment 
of debased values when land is infested to any considerable extent 
by these pernicious plants. 
Weeds reduce the crop yield. It is thigerop loss that is most con- 
sidered when estimating the damage suffered from weeds. All 
living plants must have a certain amount of space for the circulation 
of air and moisture and to be open to the life-giving warmth and 
light of the sun. When crowded, even among themselves, they 
cannot thrive; and if this needed space is to any extent occupied 
by weeds, the returns from the crop must be correspondingly less. 
These obnoxious neighbors also steal from the soil a large share of 
the food and drink belonging to the rightful tenants of the ground. 
The robbery. of soil moisture is one of the chief forms of injury. 
Weeds are notoriously more resistant to drought, more rapid of 
growth, more sturdy of habit, and more tenacious of life than the 
cultivated plants that they “shade down’”’ or “starve out.” It 
