THE CULTIVATOR. 
seeded. This failure was evidently owing to the business not being 
attended to as it should have been the latter part of the season; but 
might have been remedied had the ground been planted with corn 
the second year, and which I shall do soon, and hope to avoid a like 
neglect, by which our labor in experimenting this season was lost. 
The season of 1830, I planted another field with corn of about 
the same size of the last mentioned. There were on this field a 
number of patches of the thistle, some of them large, say over half 
an acre, some small. It was calculated that altogether they would 
have covered two and a half acres of ground. Having as usual 
marked the spots with poles stuck in the ground, we commenced 
cutting them at the proper time. The labor required on this field 
was more than on any I had yet taken in hand—the patches be¬ 
ing large, and the thistles thick and strong. At first, and while 
vegetation was quick and rapid, the labor to go over them was equal 
to two men a day; but in a short time one man would do it in the 
same time, and towards the close of summer, in three or four hours. 
Some of these patches were very obstinate, so that we were obliged 
to follow them up into October; others gave up sooner. On the 
whole, they were totally destroyed. None escaped, and none are 
now to be found in any part ol the field that has been ploughed.-—■ 
Although we succeeded in destroying the thistle on this field the 
first year, I should advise, where killing them is the great object, to 
plant with corn two years in succession, (although this in other 
cases might be bad management,) that should any thistles escape 
the first, they may be finished the second year. 
I cannot state the expense of this experiment, as I kept no memo¬ 
randum ; but should think it would amount to not more than twenty 
dollars, if men had been hired for that express work : but as it was 
done mostly by boys, with myself, or some careful hand to overlook, 
I paid out nothing extra for labor that season on account of this job, 
and there was no neglect of other farming operation. But twenty 
or even forty dollars, would be nothing compared with the object at¬ 
tained, by clearing a good plough field of this nuisance. Had they 
been left to their natural course, they would in a few years, by the 
running of their horizontal roots, and scattering with the plough and 
harrow, have spread over the whole field and ruined it for tillage. 
The last season I planted with corn a small piece of about four 
and a half acres, much infested with thistles. It was planted with 
the express view of killing them—they were spread over a great 
part of the ground, but were small, the land having laid in pasture 
12 years without ploughing, and had become what is termed sward- 
bound, which checks the growth, although it does not kill the thistle. 
The same course was pursued as in former years, and the business 
was well and regularly attended to. But few appeared after the 
first of September, but they were not neglected as long as one was 
to be found. I think they are all destroyed ; but to make the thing 
doubly sure, I intend to have it planted next season. 
A small piece at one end of this ground was planted with pota¬ 
toes, on which I had never noticed any thistles. They however 
made their appearance, and were cut off with the rest. But when 
the tops of the potatoes began to fall on and cover the ground, it 
was with difficulty that the thistles could be found, and probably 
enough has escaped to keep the roots alive, and more or less will 
make their appearance another year. I therefore would advise 
never to plant potatoes where, and when, the great object is to de¬ 
stroy the thistle. On another account, I consider corn much the 
best crop to plant with this view. The roots of this plant, if it 
grows strong, run through and fill the ground with small fibres, 
which has a tendency to keep the ground dry and hard; at the same 
time the tops form a shade, and altogether seem to have the effect 
of checking the growth of the thistle, and aid in the operation of 
destroying it. 
To prevent the necessity of going over the ground as often as was 
required with the hoe, I last spring had made some iron tools not 
unlike a small light crowbar, flattened at the lower end to about a 
hand’s breadtli and length, and steeled. With this tool, in soft mel¬ 
low ground, the thistle may be taken up to the depth of six to twelve 
inches ; but the process is much slower, and perhaps the time em¬ 
ployed in killing them in this way, although the operation is not so 
often to be performed, is equal to doing it with a hoe, with which 
the ground is much quicker gone over. 
The horizontal root of this plant, so often mentioned as its princi¬ 
pal instrument of propagation, will be found at various depths, ac¬ 
cording to soil. In lands under the plough, and in other rich mellow 
ground, they push themselves along, in every direction from the 
43 
main patch, and at every few inches send up a branch lo the sur¬ 
face. On carefully uncovering a space several feet square, I have 
found them in a manner connected and tied together with this root. 
Whenever they can be taken up below the horizontal root, they are 
mostly destroyed with once going over, and with the iron tool before 
described this is frequently done ; and where there may be a very 
small patch in a distant field, the inconvenience of looking to it as 
often as would bo necessary with a hoe, might be avoided by taking 
this course. In wet rainy seasons, like the two last, I find they 
spread themselves much fasten than in dry ones. The ground being 
soft, and the roots strong and vigorous, and meeting less resistance, 
they will push along a considerable distance in one summer. 
About nine years since, I had made a string of half stone fence, 
with posts, and boards on top. The ground on which the wall was 
placed, was rich bottom, and was set there to withstand the spring 
floods. It was made on the line of one of my neighbor’s land, on 
which at a small distance was a large patch of Canada thistles. In 
a short time they pushed along and reached the wall, and have run 
along in, and under it, more than thirty rods, or fifteen each v/ay, in 
about seven years. Having heard that salt and strong brine would 
kill them, I procured, three years ago, a quantity taken from fish 
barrels, and taking off the top stones of the wall so as to come nearer 
the roots, the brine and salt was put on very bountifully. It had the 
effect of killing the tops of the thistles, and wilted them down; but 
the next summer they came up through the wall as thrifty as before. 
I see no remedy in a case like this, but to remove the wall, other¬ 
wise they will travel to each end of it, and from this lodgment spread 
over the adjoining field. And I have no doubt, that if a strip of 
rich mellow land, reaching a distance of twenty miles, could be had, 
unobstructed by rivers, swamps, &c. a low stone wall placed there¬ 
on, and a family of thistles set a going at one end, but that they 
would in course of time reach the other, and without the agency of 
any seed. 
On my mowing and pasture lands, such as are wet and never 
ploughed, there are some patches of the thistle, which have for 
twenty-five years past remained nearly stationary. They are always 
mowed off in July, before the seed is ripe, and if necessary, a second 
time, to prevent their seeding. In this kind of hard sward land, 
they are small and puny, and compartively give but small trouble 
and annoyance. 
Whenever we have succeeded in expelling the thistle from our 
tillage lands, which is the extent of my expectations, in respect to 
my own, and all that I would at present advise to others to attempt 
doing, they may, I am confident, with little care and no expense, be 
easily kept off afterwards. The seeding thistle is very small, and 
as easily destroyed as a pigweed, should they happen to be observ¬ 
ed. It requires several years for them to form any considerable 
patch—their greatest security is their not being noticed, until by 
their side or horizontal roots they have run out in a different direc¬ 
tions. Small patches may be killed by a deep covering of anything 
that will keep them under, and prevent them from shooting up to the 
surface. This I have done with pummice put on to some very small 
bunches near my cider mill. Salting cattle and sheep often on small 
pieces will have the like effect; but this must be done very often 
and through the season of growing. The salt itself does not have 
the effect of destroying the roots, because it cannot reach them, but 
the frequent licking of the spot by the cattle takes off the shoots as 
fast as they come above the ground, which is the same in its effects, 
as hoeing them off. All these methods, however, cannot be practised 
except on a very small scale. 
1 know of no plant or bush, with which the Canada thistle so 
nearly compares in its habits and modes of propagation, as the com¬ 
mon elder. This, like the thistles, has its seed, and its horizontal 
roots with which to form patches; and like it, also, in not being to 
be destroyed by cutting off the tops once, or even twice a year, but 
must be rooted out. The same treatment which kills the thistle 
would have the like effect on the elder: but this would be attended 
with too much trouble, for the same number usually on ours farms,— 
the better way, therefore, is to dig and root them out at once. But 
I think it is as great an absurdity for a farmer to say that he will 
not attempt to destroy the clumps of elder on his mowing land, be¬ 
cause his neighbor lets them alone to seed, as to refuse to kill the 
thistle on his plough land for the like cause. Since in either case, 
when they are once eradicated they are easily kept out; let his 
neighbors’ practice be what it may. 
In my various experiments, I have tested this method of destroy- 
