380 
Agricultural Weeds. 
disappear by removing stagnant or surface water, and the second 
by depasturing, dressing with bones and other fertilizers, with 
the use of the harrow and roller. 
Where irrigation can be properly applied it soon makes a mar- 
vellous change in the natural vegetation of a meadow. Even in 
three years we have seen a revolution in the herbage with respect 
to increased growth, extension of good pasture-herbs, the almost 
complete annihilation of bad ones, and increase in quantity and 
nutritive power of the whole. However, there are some weeds 
in pasture which require early cropping witli the scythe, as pre- 
viously adverted to : whilst isolated plants, as marsh-thistles, 
burdock, and the like, should be cut down with the hoe or spud. 
Weeds in Watercourses. — Much mischief arises from the stop- 
ping up and damaging of water-courses by weeds, more especially 
in trunk-drains, and we have seen a whole system of under- 
drainage vitiated from a want of attention to this circumstance. 
The farmer should be careful to keep his ditches and water- 
courses free from weeds wherever and whenever they create 
obstruction ; but not only should home water-courses be attended 
to, but obstructions in brooks and rivers, though often at a 
distance, are great impediments to the operation of drainage, and 
the want of removal of weeds may even render an attempt at 
proper draining futile. There should then, as it appears to us, 
for the benefit of the whole community, be an officer appointed 
in every district, whose duty it should be to enforce the keeping- 
of ditches and water-courses clean and free from weeds and other 
obstructions, and this should be done with as much attention as 
the surveying of our roads. 
The weeds of hedge-banks and fences are innumerable : many 
wild-Howers, not in our list, by growing in such situations are 
weeds. Couch, cleavers, bindweed, and bryony are among 
the most troublesome, especially when they occur in young 
quicks. To insure the growth of the fence these must be re- 
moved, and indeed should never be suffered to make head. 
This can be done with a small fork, handled with judgment, so 
as not to disturb the roots of the hedge. By this means we may 
not only remove the weeds, but the operation contributes to the 
fertility of the soil, and thus the hedge more quickly overtops 
what but for this attention would completely smother it. In this 
case, as in most others, it is safer to burn what we remove than 
to remove it to the dung-heap or to let it lie about. We knew 
a farmer who offered his cottagers 3r/. the bushel for weed- 
ashes ; and as a description of the manner in which a cottage 
family proceeded to make them may be useful and interesting, it 
is here given. 
The refuse of the garden was first put together in a heap, and 
