>RARY 

 YORK 



BOTANICAL 

 «a*B8N. 



BULLETIN 



OF THE 



Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station 



Number 175. June, 1906. 



A SECOND OHIO WEED MANUAL.* 



BY A. D. SELBY. 

 GENERAL WEED QUESTIONS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The Station Botanist has been receiving- annually during- the 

 past ten 3^ears a large number of weeds for identification; this num- 

 ber of individual specimens has sometimes reached several hundred. 

 Personal observation bears out the inference drawn from these in- 

 quiries, that there is g-eneral interest in the Ohio weed problem. 

 Effort in weed destruction is oftentimes misdirected, while precau- 

 tions against the introduction of new or troublesome weeds are fre- 

 quently slighted. Suggestions of various sorts in the weed line 

 may have a reason for publication. These suggestions may as 

 rightly call a halt in measures directed ag-ainst useful plants that 

 tend to spread spontaneously, as to intensify efforts to subjugate 

 real weed pests. The following- revised pages are offered to Ohio 

 cultivators in the hope that what appears in them will be of assist- 

 ance both in recognizing- and in dealing with weedy plants. 



NATURE OF WEEDS. 



Plant life upon the earth is essential. The husbandman is con- 

 cerned with growing" plants first of all, but he seeks to avoid those 

 which are unprofitable. The plants which tend to grow where they 

 are not desired he calls "weeds." Some of these weedy plants have 

 been brought from Europe and Asia, while others are African or 

 American. t They all have this tendency to propagate themselves 

 and to resist man's efforts to subdue them. 



*A revised and enlarged edition of A First Ohio Weed Manual, Bulletin 83, 1897, pp. 248-100. 

 tSee the Non-Indigenous Flora of Ohio by Dr. and Mrs. Kellerman, Ohio State University ttuuo- 

 tin, Botanical Series No. 4, 1900. 



