262 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 
till they are taken out with the spade, though some- 
times the frequent mowings exterminate them. 
Spearmint disappears with cutting. 
Foxtail grass is really the vilest weed that 
comes in alfalfa in the cornbelt region. It is an an- 
nual grass that comes up each spring or some time 
during the summer. It loves an alfalfa sod. Mow- 
ing it does not destroy it, and it will seed if no more 
than an inch high. Fortunately the seeds readily 
germinate and one can take advantage of this fact 
to eradicate it practically the year before the alfalfa 
is sown. If he will put the land to corn or some 
other cultivated crop and so carefully cultivate all 
the season that not one head of foxtail grass goes to 
seed, the thing will be eradicated from that field. It 
does not seem to have power to carry seeds over in 
the soil as do so many weeds. They all seem to ger- 
minate in one year if lying in the soil or in contact 
with it, and if the seedlings are destroyed without 
chance of maturing seed again that weed is eradi- 
cated from that field. This has been the experience 
of the writer and his brother on Woodland Farm, 
where a 60-acre field once alive with foxtail grass 
was made clean in one vear except some places along 
the margins where cultivation was not so thorough 
as it should have been. In order to accomplish this, 
however, one must go through the field with the hoe 
at least twice after cultivation has ceased, else there 
will be estraved plants maturing seed to become cen- 
ters of future infection. 
Yellow trefoil is a small, low-growing clover with 
