570 



The Destruction of Bracken. [oct., 



plant similar to the mature bracken with which the cycle 

 started. 



The foregoing system of reproduction, however, seems to 

 occur but rarely in Nature in the dry positions in which 

 bracken is chiefly harmful to the farmer, though it may be 

 more frequent in damper situations. The spores from the 

 bracken leaves can be readily grown artificially. 



The second and common system of propagation is by means 

 of branching and creeping underground stems or rhizomes, 

 only the leaves with their stalks appearing above ground. 

 During the summer months the leaves manufacture far more 

 food material than is requisite for their own growth and the 

 production of spores, and this excess food they store in the 

 creeping rootstock for the purpose of starting the new growth 

 in the following spring. It is on this important fact — not, 

 as many persons may imagine, on the prevention of the pro- 

 duction of spores — that the eradication of bracken chiefly 

 depends. 



Eradication of Bracken by Cutting. — Many plans have been 

 suggested for the eradication of bracken, but the prin- 

 ciple involving successful operations consists in cutting it 

 down as soon as the balance of stored food material has been 

 most nearly exhausted in producing a wealth of foliage, and 

 repeating the operation at successive intervals as the plant 

 puts forth new leaves in an endeavour to fulfil its natural 

 functions — the production of spores and the storage of a 

 fresh supply of food in the rootstocks. With the repeated 

 cutting these natural functions are prevented; the plant uses 

 up its capital of food reserves, the removal of the leaves 

 renders it incapable of manufacturing further food, and the 

 exhaustion and ultimate death of the plant follows. The first 

 cutting may most usefully be carried out about the middle 

 or end of June, according to locality, the bracken having by 

 that time used up a large proportion of its food reserves and 

 being near maturity. Thereafter cutting should be repeated 

 as soon as the bracken reaches the stage when the new leaves 

 begin to unfold. Cutting may need to be repeated two or 

 even three times in the first season after the June cutting, and 

 two or three times altogether in each of the two or three sub- 

 sequent years, but with the gradual elimination of the bracken 

 comes the reward. In experiments conducted at Auchentorlie 



