29-4 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August, 
Walks and Talks on the Farm.—No. 128. 
Last fall, a week or ten days after the wheat 
was up, I went over the field with a Thomas’ 
smoothing harrow. I did this for the purpose 
of killing the weeds, more especially red-root. 
This weed is a great pest. The seed germinates 
in September and October. The young plants 
make their appearance in the wheat in October 
and November, looking as innocent and harm¬ 
less as red clover. During the winter they send 
out their tap-roots, and take firm hold of the 
soil. After this there is no way of killing them, 
except by hoeing and pulling. In the spring, 
especially where the wheat is thin on the 
ground, the red-root plants grow rapidly, and 
throw out numerous branches, each of which 
produce a bunch of flowers, and in a few 
days, or say by the middle of June, the seed is 
formed, and before clover is fit to cut for hay, 
the seed is mature enough to grow. It has a 
hard husk, and contains a good deal of oil. It 
will lie in the soil for years without rotting, 
and will start into growth in the autumn, when¬ 
ever the condition of the soil is favorable. The 
rotation of crops, adopted in this section, is ad¬ 
mirably adapted for the spread of red-root. 
For instance, we sow clover with our wheat. 
The next year we mow the clover for hay, and 
afterward for seed. The next year the field is 
either mown again, or pastured. The next 
spring it is plowed up for corn, cultivated un¬ 
til July, and the next spring it is plowed, and 
sown to barley, and after the barley is harvest¬ 
ed, the land is plowed, harrowed, cultivated, 
and plowed again, and made very fine and 
mellow, and is then sown to wheat in Septem¬ 
ber, and is seeded down with clover and timo¬ 
thy in the spring. 
Now let us see what the result will be, so far 
as the spread of red-root is concerned. There 
is red root in the wheat. It goes to seed, and 
a considerable proportion of the seed falls on 
the ground. In September such of the red-root 
seeds as find a good sced-bed, start rip in the 
clover. The plants grow during the fall and 
winter months, and especially if the crop is 
light, the red-root plants flower and produce 
seed, and when the clover is made into hay, 
the red-root, with its seeds, is carefully stowed 
away in the barn or stack, and during the win¬ 
ter is fed out to stock, and the seeds find their 
way to the manure. This manure is drawn 
out, spread on the land, and plowed under, 
seeds and all, for corn. The seeds lie dormant 
under the furrow. The next spring the corn 
stubble is plowed for barley, and the red-root 
seeds are mixed with the soil. After the bar¬ 
ley is off, the land is plowed once or twice, and 
well harrowed, and cultivated, and rolled, and 
then sown to wheat. And then up comes your 
red-root. It goes to seed in the wheat, and af¬ 
terward in the clover, and in a few years our 
wheat farms are overrun with this pest. 
Now, if we could discover some cheap 
method of killing the young red-root plants in 
the wheat, it would be a great boon. I had 
found, by repeated trials, that harrowing in the 
spring will not kill the red-root plants. They 
have then got too firm a hold on the soil, and 
so I thought I would try it in the fall. Three 
years ago I harrowed part of a field in Novem¬ 
ber. The wheat, I thought, was better when 
it was harrowed, but it did not kill the red- 
root. I did not harrow early enough. Last 
fall I commenced to harrow the wheat as soon 
as it was fairly up, going the first time length¬ 
wise of the drills. It did not pull up the wheat, 
but where the soil was very mellow, it covered 
some of the plants. I found, that by going 
over the field with a roller before harrowing, 
this difficulty was to a considerable extent 
overcome. And if any are disposed to try har¬ 
rowing their wheat this fall, I would strongly 
advise them to roll it first. I have always been 
opposed to rolling wheat in the fall. But in 
this case it certainly was a benefit. 
I found that the first harrowing killed thou¬ 
sands of young red-root plants and other weeds, 
and I was willing to kill a little wheat for the 
sake of killing a good deal of red-root. But I 
soon found a new crop of red-root springing 
up from more seed. And so we harrowed the 
wheat again, going crosswise of the drills, in 
hopes that the harrow would uncover the 
wheat plants buried by the previous harrow¬ 
ing. It had this effect to some extent, and it 
also killed the young red-root plants. After 
this, say the last of October, we harrowed it 
again for the last time. 
We certainly killed millions of red-root 
plants on this field of 13 acres, but, I am sorry 
to say, there were thousands left. 
“ Well,” says the Deacon, “you ought not to 
grumble. You would have had a tough job 
hand-picking on that field, if you had not har¬ 
rowed it. But we all think that you hurt your 
wheat by harrowing it.” 
“ Of course you do,” I replied, “ you said 
the same thing when I first harrowed my wheat 
in the spring. Now, all the young farmers, 
and some of the old fogies, are in favor of 
spring-harrowing. I shall harrow my wheat 
again this fall, taking care, however, to roll it 
thoroughly, to press down the little ridges left 
by the drill-tubes, and leave a smooth surface 
for the harrow. I think, too, I shall sow my 
wheat earlier. I have usually sown about the 
loth of September. If the land is in good con¬ 
dition, this is probably the best time. But on 
poorer land a week or ten days earlier may 
lessen the chances of a failure. 
Several gentlemen have written me in regard 
to the sheep and lambs, which the Deacon and 
I weighed, asking me to weigh them again and 
report. If we were not so busy hoeing man¬ 
gels, I would do so. The Cotswold rams are 
out in the lot back of the Deacon’s, and we 
have not had them up to the barn for some 
time. But at the next opportunity I shall 
weigh them. As I said before, I do not go in 
for heavy weights. My rams are in rather a 
poor pasture', and do not have any grain. I 
believe in feeding them all they can eat and 
digest, when young, but after they are ten or 
twelve months old, they should be fed only 
enough to keep them in vigorous health. This 
stuffing thorough-bred rams with grain, and 
loading them with fat, for the purpose of show¬ 
ing at the fairs, is almost certain to result in 
weak, puny lambs. I think it is time that we 
stopped importing sheep and swine. At any 
rate, we ought to know enough by this time, 
not to import the “ prize animals.” 
But I was going to say, that this morning 
(June 17) we had the flock of ewes and lambs 
at the barn, and put a few of the lambs on the 
scales. The following are the weights of some 
pure-bred Cotswolds. Ram lamb, born March 
16, weight at birth, 14 lbs., April 18, 33 lbs., 
May 22, 60 lbs., June 17, 76 lbs. This is not 
bad for a three months old lamb. He would 
dress, according to my rule, 43 lbs. This is the 
largest, but not the best pure-bred lamb in the 
flock. A pair of twins, a ewe and a ram, born 
March 23, weighed at birth, ewe 9|,ram 10 lbs. 
April 24, ewe 20, ram 24 lbs. June 17, ewe 45 
lbs., ram 52 lbs. It will be seen that the single 
lamb gained 19 lbs. the first month, and the 
pair of twins 244 lbs. During the three months 
the single lamb has gained 62 lbs., and the pair 
of twins, together, have gained 77| lbs. A ram 
lamb, born April 18, weighed 12 lbs. at birth, 
and 53 lbs. June 17. Another, born April 30, 
weighed 14 lbs. at birth, and June 17, 60 lbs. 
This is a gain of 46 lbs. in 48 days. 
The following are the weights of some grade- 
Cotswold lambs. One ewe lamb, born March 
14, weighed at birth 10J lbs., April 14, 29 lbs., 
June 17, 71 lbs. Mr. Lawes’ “ fat lamb,” killed 
for analysis, August 16, when about six months 
old, weighed alive 84| lbs., and dressed 50| lbs.. 
This was a well-bred Hampshire Down lamb. 
I think my little grade ewe lamb, with only two 
crosses of Cotswold blood in her, and descend¬ 
ed from a common Merino ewe, that cost me 
$2.40, need not be ashamed of this comparison. 
If I do not forget it, I will kill one of these 
grade lambs, when of the same age as Mr. Lawes’ 
lamb, and weigh all the different parts of the 
animal, as he did. I think I can beat him. I 
never liked Cotswold mutton, and I am not go¬ 
ing to change my opinion on this point, simply 
because I happen to keep a flock of pure-bred 
Cotswolds. They are too fat for my eating. 
I killed one last winter with four or five inches 
of pure fat on the ribs. It is capital food to 
steam up, with a barrel of sliced mangels and 
corn-meal, for pigs that you want to push 
ahead rapidly. If a butcher wants a fat sheep 
that will dress 200 lbs, to hang up in his shop 
for show, let him have it. Don’t kill it for 
your own use. When you want good mut¬ 
ton, get a well-bred grade Cotswold-Merino, 
and call it South Down. 
In saying Cotswold-Merino, I do not wish to 
be understood as implying that Leicester-Me¬ 
rino, or Shropshire Down-Merino, or Lincoln- 
Merino, or South Down-Merino is not just as 
good. All I am contending for is that, with 
thirty million of sheep in the United States, 
and with flocks of pure-bred Cotswolds, Leices¬ 
ter's, Lincolns, Oxford, Hampshire, Shropshire, 
and Sussex Downs, where good rams can be 
had at low figures, there is no reason, why we 
should not have all the good lamb, and mutton, 
and wool, that the country needs—and that 
without importing another sheep from Eng¬ 
land. But all this time Fred is waiting to weigh 
another grade ewe lamb, born March 16, weight 
at birth, 12 lbs., April 14, 30| lbs., June 17, 70 
lbs. A ram lamb, born March 25, weighed at 
birth 11| lbs., April 24, 31 lbs, and June 17, 66 
lbs. A pair of twin-lambs, born March 22, 
weighed at birth, ram, 10J, April 18, 27 lbs., 
June 17, 65 lbs.; ewe lamb, 9| lbs. at birth, 
April 18, 24 lbs., June 17, 51 lbs. They are 
not three months old, and the pair already 
weigh more than their mother. 
After weighing the lambs, starting the' men 
to cultivate and hoe mangels, corn, and pota¬ 
toes, and "Walking and Talking a little on the 
Farm, as above, I went to Rochester in the 
afternoon, got on the express-train at 5.25 p. 
m., and the next morning at 7 o’clock I was 
in New York. At 8.15 a.m. the steamer “ Vir¬ 
ginia Seymour,” which had been engaged for 
the trip, left the pier at 33rd-st., East River, 
with a company of ladies and gentlemen on a 
visit to Beacon Stock Farm, on Long Island. 
Mr. Delamater, the owner of the farm, was on 
board, and gave us all a hearty «welcome. We 
steamed up the river some forty or fifty miles, 
and reached the farm about noon. All this 
