The Garden Magazine 



The Enemy at Our Door 



A MOST insidious natural enemy ex- 

 ists at the very backdoor of every 

 country and suburban home. It 

 does not blast its way into our 

 ■domain with noisy guns and powerful ex- 

 plosives, but lands silently, hugs the soil 

 tightly, roots deeply. Its action is all the 

 more to be feared, because it robs us of that 

 which next to life and food, is our most val- 

 uable possession — soil fertility. That enemy 

 Is WEEDS! 



Weeds are plants that don't belong. In 

 ages gone by they fulfilled their mission of 

 turning sterile soil into fertile soil, as succes- 

 sively dying generations added humus — "" 

 plant food — to the barren surface of the 

 earth. They also served as a ground cover, 

 preventing the washing away of good top soil 

 or the carrying away of the soil by high winds. 

 But we of to-day have better, quicker meth- 

 ods of accomplishing these ends. Not- 

 withstanding the contention of some idealists 

 that weeds are good because "they keep us 

 ■digging," weeds must go and here is why: 



The cost to us, as a nation, of maintaining 

 weeds, amounts to several hundreds of mil- 

 lions of dollars per year — a conservative 

 estimate, says the U. S. Department of Agri- 

 culture. This loss takes the form of reduced 

 crops, and increased or wasted labor. An acre 

 of good ground yielded 60 bushels of corn 

 under clean cultivation. The yield from that 

 same acre, under weedy influence, was reduced 

 to 20 busbels for the season. But, you will 

 say, we do not maintain weeds! Not literally! 

 But we suffer them to exist; we do not take 

 them seriously; we do not fight them to a finish! 

 Weeds must go! They are injurious to the 

 garden and to the crops, whether vegetables 

 or flowers. They rob the soil of moisture, 

 perhaps the greatest offense in the vegetable 

 garden, since the largest part of every vege- 

 table is water. 



Weeds crowd the plants, particularly the 

 seedlings, to such an extent as to shut out 

 light and space in soil and air. The resulting 

 injury is strikingly illustrated in the com- 

 parative size of the two alfalfa seedlings shown 

 on next page. Both were born the same day in 

 the same field. But one lived among clean, 

 the other among weedy surroundings. The 

 injury done by crowding weeds to seedling 

 vegetables, is frequently such that subse- 



qent development is never normal. A good 

 start is half the battle of life. 



Weeds rob the soil of plant food. With 

 manure and all kinds of fertilizer at a pre- 

 mium, the nursing or suffering of weeds in 

 the home garden becomes a crime. Remem- 

 ber that every ounce of useless weed growth 

 reduces your crop of cultivated plants in a 

 corresponding degree. 



Weeds afford a haven of refuge to countless 



ARE THE FRENCH "ODD"? 



"Aren't the French odd ? " queried 

 an observer the other day. "In spite 

 of all their suffering and while they 

 are yet in the midst of their agony 

 they still hold their wonderful Rose 

 show each year at La Bagatelle, and 

 the French women, even the poorest, 

 cherish their little window boxes and 

 flower borders more than ever." 



Odd ? Was it then just a foolish 

 and expensive habit — those window 

 boxes in the cottages ? Was the Rose 

 show only a vanity show? Was John 

 Fiske odd when he wrote "I often 

 think, when working over my plants, 

 of what Linnaeus once said of the 

 unfolding of a blossom, 'I saw God 

 in His Glory passing near me, and 

 bowed my head in worship'"; was 

 Wordsworth odd when in the midst 

 of the beauty of nature's garden he 

 "felt a presence that disturbed him 

 with a joy of elevated thoughts, a 

 sense sublime of something far more 

 deeply interfused " ? 



Well, perhaps; but we would rather 

 believe that they are odd who cannot 

 understand how God whispers to some 

 of us from the hearts of Violets and 

 Roses; who have not walked with 

 Him in a garden; who do not know 

 the sense of comradeship with Him 

 that comes as we work with spade 

 and hoe with the eternal forces of life 

 in earth and air and sunlight. There 

 is a spiritual solace in gardening and 

 thank Heaven the French have it so 

 abundantly. 



We Americans are learning year 

 by year more of the genuine value of 

 that solace, but its riches have only 

 been touched. 



E. Fred Eastman. 



numbers of insect enemies and plant diseases. 

 You are bound to spray the cultivated crops 

 if there is danger of losing them, but wouldn't 

 think of wasting good spraying materials on 

 a patch of weeds! Yet, those very weeds will 

 carry the brood or fungi that will make things 

 lively for your cultivated crops next season. 



Weeds lower the quality of the crop, 

 causing undersize, indifferent appearance, 

 and even inferior texture and flavor. Certain 

 weeds may give up substances that are in- 

 jurious to the roots of the cultivated crop. 



Munitions of Defence 



TT IS obvious that, in order to en- 

 A joy the full benefits to be derived from the 

 garden, weeds must be fought with every 

 means at our disposal. And please don't 

 underestimate the seriousness of the struggle 

 ahead. Nature has equipped most weeds 

 with a wonderful constitution; some have 

 roots that defy the attacks of men or beasts 

 for years. Others bear seeds in enormous 

 quantities through which to perpetuate their 

 kind. Consider the wind-spread seeds of 

 Dandelion! The common Wild Carrot bears 

 20,000 seeds per plant per year. Some This- 

 tles are as fruitful. The Wild Mustard bears 

 up to five generations of plants and seeds 

 within five months. 



. The remedy lies in studying the kind of 

 , weed to be fought. Broadly speaking, we 

 have annual, biennial, and perennial weeds. 

 The annual weeds bear seeds the first year 

 and then die. They are the easiest to subdue 

 since all that is needed is to chop off the plant 

 before it goes to seed. The roots will then 

 die of their own accord. 



Biennial weeds develop a strong root and 

 plant the first year and bear seeds the second. 

 Pulling them up by the roots the first year is 

 the best way to dispose of them. If you can- 

 not get the roots, cut off the flower stalks 

 before seeds form the following year. Wild 

 Carrot and some Thistles are typical of this 

 class. 



Perennial weeds may be eradicated by 

 digging after the roots or by constantly cut- 

 ting off the tops, which action will gradually 

 starve the roots. But, in their case, as well, 

 the effort should be made to prevent seeds 

 from forming. One Dandelion plant gone to 

 seed will do more harm than a dozen roots in 

 a well-kept, closely cut lawn. 



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