Page 1 |
Previous | 1 of 20 | Next |
|
|
Loading content ...
VOL. LXHI INDIANAPOLIS, APRIL 4, 1908. NO. 14 How to Fight Weeds. Editors Indiana Farmer: Much of our work in trying to destroy weeds amounts to nothing, simply because we are unfamiliar with the character of the plants we are fighting, and their manner of propagation. It will save time and work if we would first determine whether the weed found is an annual, biennial or perennial, for a method of destruction which might be employed in killing an annual would prove wholly inefficient in killing a perennial. An annual is one which forms seeds the fu-st ssjason, the plants then die and the seeds are ready to grow the next season. Such plants usually produce :,n abundance of hard- toatde seeds, which possess strong germinating power. This class of seeds gives the farmer a great deal of trouble, because they may be plowed under, and then after several years will sprout aud take possession of the lield. Frequently a field, which has been plowed 'leeply, becomes very weedy, imu the source of the weeds ia puzzling. But if the matter can be traced back a few jears it will be found that a" t ne crop of weeds were alls swed to seed and fall upon the ground. The way to ilean a field of these au- iT.als is to prevent ripening ssf seeds. The last season lias been a very favorable cne for sprouting many of these long dormant seeds. Meadows have contained more crab grass and foxtail than I have seen for many years. Both of these are mean pests and the new ■rops of clover timothy seed have an unusual percentage of them, Wild oats is another annual which is gradually working down from the Northwest. These heads should be detected before the seeds ripen, and gathered and burned. In North Dakota, where wild oats have been giving much trouble, seed growers employ boys and girls to go through the oat fields and will up the wild oat plants. Lamb's Quarters, Smartweed, Pigweed, Wild Mustard sud Dodder are annuals, which must be < lassed as pests and which require persistent ami heroic measures to clean out. We sometimes go over pastures and meadows and cut off the tips of all weeds spring up again. Biennials grow from j" sight, and think that ends the trouble. Ihis will not kill biennials, for they will spring up again. Biennials grow from seed, but they do not form seed until the second season, and they are usually tap- rooted. The most effective method of killing this clasa of plants is to continue to ' ut off the tops, as fast as they show above ground, or dig them up. With an !|nnual one cutting is usually all that is necenuj to kill the plant; with Hie hien- !"!il the plant must be cut down before it **0m, and kept down, and this menns it ""•11 have to be cut four or five times before finishes its Hfe period. Wild carrots "perhaps the most dangerous biennial *Mch is now invading the Central West liis pPSt has crept in so stealthily that we iprdly know its source. It is likely one ♦he had things we have got with low cr»de clover and alfalfa seed. It shonld be dug up; if the plants are simply mown they will start up again and produce seed later in the season. When Wild Carrot has gained a strong foothold it will be best to plow up the field and put it into corn or some hoed crop. Burdock, Teasel and Bull Thistle are other biennials which are very common in pastures and meadows. Perennials, those plants which live from year to year, are the most difficult to get rid of. Many of these have creeping or underground stems and from these stems the plants spread very rapidly. Quack grass is one of the worst of this class of plants. In many sections it bas practically taken whole fields. It is one branch bottom adjourning Slate Creek, whicli produces 50 bushels of corn per acre, containing nine acres, which I sowed to oats, and followed with one-half bushel of red top and one-half bushel timothy and one bushel alsike seed; this was three years ago. I cut oats which was not an extra crop, on account of wet weather. I got a fine stand of grass and elover, which I concluded to mow for hny the next year. It came on early and looked promising. The clover rather choksad the grass out, and in May was in full bloom, and only 8 or 10 inches high, and the first of June it was ready to cut for hay with scarcely any seed in it. I Shenstone, Lichfield, England, Estate of Sir Richard Cooper, Bart. of the most difficult plants to destroy, and it spreads rapidly. The creeping root stalks must be dug out or smothered out. If left unchoked in meadows or pastures it will quickly take the fields. Sorrel, Dock, Milkweed, Morning-glory, Ribgrass, Dandelion and Sow Thistle are all bad perennials and should be kept down. One of the most persistent perennials we have to deal with is Canada Thistle. This may be easily recognized by the creeping root- stalk. The method of eradication is really not the important question; the thing to do is to attack the Canada Thistle where- ever and whenever you find it and prevent it from spreading. The effectiveness of weed destruction depends upon prompt action and persi3tance, and a correct knowledge of the plants in question. By keeping up this work of destruction of weeds as they appear, and then sowing only clean seed grain, even very foul land may be made tolerably clean in four or five years. L. C. Brown. ABOUT ALSIKE CLOVER. Editors Indiana Farmer: 1 rend in Indiana Farmer of March 14th, an article on "Experience with Alsike Clover." b.v John S. Buzzard, which may be misleading to the general public. Mr. Buzzard did not give the kind of land he raised his bountiful crop of alsike upon, whicli I think he should have done, ns this is where. I think his article is misleading. I hnve had some little experience with this clover, here in the southeastern part o.' Daviess County, Indiana, and in a rich let it go until the grass was headed before I cut it, and by this time the clover had fallen down very badly. As to the seed getting in manure and taking everything, there is no danger, as I hauled all manure on the upland, and the clover scarcely got 5 or 6 inches high, and you never see any of it the second year, as was the ease with my meadow: except one very wet place in one corner of the field and it is there yet. Alsike is a wet land clover and will grow and do well in such land, but on anything like dry or rolling land let alsike alone. Sow the red or common clover, or else sow the mammoth, or sapling as some call it, and you won't get disappointed. Horace McCord. Spring is here and farmers are too busy to read, but let us halt our readers long enough to ask them to be careful with the team when starting into the hard work of breaking ground. Do no push them too hard the first few days. Let them have a- little time to toughen their muscles and harden their shoulders. See that the collars are kept clean and well oiled, and that the tired animals have good clean beds to lie on after their hard day's work. Farmers who want to keep accounts v.itli their neighbors, merchants, hired hands; with their fields, stock, etc., will find a little, 25c book published by the Orange Judd Co., just the thing to instruct them in the business. It contains sample accounts and forms that will enable any farmer to keep his accounts in a clear and satisfactory manner. Oreat Men oa Education. Roosevelt—To train boys and girls in merely literary accomplishments to the total exclusion of industrial, manual and technical training, tends to unfit them for industrial work; aud in real life most work is industrial. Dr. G. Stanley Hall—The germs and extracts of as many trades as possible must be introduced into the common schools. Dr. Eliot—The perception or discovery of the individual gift or capacity will often be effected in the elementary school, but more generally in the secondary school; and the making of these discoveries should be held 'one of the most important parts ___________ of the teacher's work. Supt. Samuel B. Orth, of Cleveland in National Educational Association — Our public schools should seek to discover the aptitude of the children and then develop them according to tlieir vocational desires. Prof. Angel, Chicago University—There is great need of domestic science and art in the primary and secondary schools. Club women of the state should urge the establishment of trade schools for young people. In order to get training in useful vocations it is now necessary to commit some crime and get into the reform school. Supt. Cooley, Chicago Schools—Vocational study must be the backbone of the high school of the future— manual training and household arts and business practice. Educators and school boards in their zeal to produce wise men should not forget that one of the chief == functions of the public school should be to give the child increased capacity for making a living. Professor D. O. Barto, University of Illinois—An education should aim first of all to fit one to earn his living. The marked tendency of the modern education is toward vocational training. Arthur W. Page in World's Work—But the problem of the trade training can never be solved until it becomes a part of the public school system. That is clear; and it is not generally recognized. This is the only machinery that can ever reach the great mass of the people. Dr. John Dewey—It is our present education which is one-sided and narrow. It is an education dominated almost entirely by the medineval conception of learning. It is something whieh appeals for the most part simply to the intellectual aspect of our natures, our desires to learn, to accumulate information, and to get control of the symbols of learning, not to our impulses and tendencies to make, to do, to create, to produce. The old education had for its purpose the enjoyments of the higher intellectual life. The new education has for its purpose useful activity. The old education sought culture for its own sake. The new education seeks culture for use. The old education would make learned men. The new education would make useful men; nse ful men in any part of the great field of human activity. That education is the best for any man which will develop in him in the highest degree the desire and power to do useful things.
Object Description
Title | Indiana farmer, 1908, v. 63, no. 14 (Apr. 4) |
Purdue Identification Number | INFA6314 |
Date of Original | 1908 |
Subjects (LCSH) |
Agriculture Farm management Horticulture Agricultural machinery |
Subjects (NALT) |
agriculture farm management horticulture agricultural machinery and equipment |
Genre | Periodical |
Call Number of Original | 630.5 In2 |
Location of Original | Hicks Repository |
Coverage | United States - Indiana |
Type | text |
Format | JP2 |
Language | eng |
Collection Title | Indiana Farmer |
Rights Statement | Content in the Indiana Farmer Collection is in the public domain (published before 1923) or lacks a known copyright holder. Digital images in the collection may be used for educational, non-commercial, or not-for-profit purposes. |
Repository | Purdue University Libraries |
Date Digitized | 2011-03-23 |
Digitization Information | Original scanned at 300 ppi on a Bookeye 3 scanner using internal software. Display images generated in CONTENTdm as JP2000s; file format for archival copy is uncompressed TIF format. |
Description
Title | Page 1 |
Subjects (LCSH) |
Agriculture Farm management Horticulture Agricultural machinery |
Subjects (NALT) |
agriculture farm management horticulture agricultural machinery and equipment |
Genre | Periodical |
Call Number of Original | 630.5 In2 |
Location of Original | Hicks Repository |
Coverage | Indiana |
Type | text |
Format | JP2 |
Language | eng |
Collection Title | Indiana Farmer |
Rights Statement | Content in the Indiana Farmer Collection is in the public domain (published before 1923) or lacks a known copyright holder. Digital images in the collection may be used for educational, non-commercial, or non-for-profit purposes. |
Repository | Purdue University Libraries |
Digitization Information | Orignal scanned at 300 ppi on a Bookeye 3 scanner using internal software. Display images generated in CONTENTdm as JP2000s; file format for archival copy is uncompressed TIF format. |
Transcript | VOL. LXHI INDIANAPOLIS, APRIL 4, 1908. NO. 14 How to Fight Weeds. Editors Indiana Farmer: Much of our work in trying to destroy weeds amounts to nothing, simply because we are unfamiliar with the character of the plants we are fighting, and their manner of propagation. It will save time and work if we would first determine whether the weed found is an annual, biennial or perennial, for a method of destruction which might be employed in killing an annual would prove wholly inefficient in killing a perennial. An annual is one which forms seeds the fu-st ssjason, the plants then die and the seeds are ready to grow the next season. Such plants usually produce :,n abundance of hard- toatde seeds, which possess strong germinating power. This class of seeds gives the farmer a great deal of trouble, because they may be plowed under, and then after several years will sprout aud take possession of the lield. Frequently a field, which has been plowed 'leeply, becomes very weedy, imu the source of the weeds ia puzzling. But if the matter can be traced back a few jears it will be found that a" t ne crop of weeds were alls swed to seed and fall upon the ground. The way to ilean a field of these au- iT.als is to prevent ripening ssf seeds. The last season lias been a very favorable cne for sprouting many of these long dormant seeds. Meadows have contained more crab grass and foxtail than I have seen for many years. Both of these are mean pests and the new ■rops of clover timothy seed have an unusual percentage of them, Wild oats is another annual which is gradually working down from the Northwest. These heads should be detected before the seeds ripen, and gathered and burned. In North Dakota, where wild oats have been giving much trouble, seed growers employ boys and girls to go through the oat fields and will up the wild oat plants. Lamb's Quarters, Smartweed, Pigweed, Wild Mustard sud Dodder are annuals, which must be < lassed as pests and which require persistent ami heroic measures to clean out. We sometimes go over pastures and meadows and cut off the tips of all weeds spring up again. Biennials grow from j" sight, and think that ends the trouble. Ihis will not kill biennials, for they will spring up again. Biennials grow from seed, but they do not form seed until the second season, and they are usually tap- rooted. The most effective method of killing this clasa of plants is to continue to ' ut off the tops, as fast as they show above ground, or dig them up. With an !|nnual one cutting is usually all that is necenuj to kill the plant; with Hie hien- !"!il the plant must be cut down before it **0m, and kept down, and this menns it ""•11 have to be cut four or five times before finishes its Hfe period. Wild carrots "perhaps the most dangerous biennial *Mch is now invading the Central West liis pPSt has crept in so stealthily that we iprdly know its source. It is likely one ♦he had things we have got with low cr»de clover and alfalfa seed. It shonld be dug up; if the plants are simply mown they will start up again and produce seed later in the season. When Wild Carrot has gained a strong foothold it will be best to plow up the field and put it into corn or some hoed crop. Burdock, Teasel and Bull Thistle are other biennials which are very common in pastures and meadows. Perennials, those plants which live from year to year, are the most difficult to get rid of. Many of these have creeping or underground stems and from these stems the plants spread very rapidly. Quack grass is one of the worst of this class of plants. In many sections it bas practically taken whole fields. It is one branch bottom adjourning Slate Creek, whicli produces 50 bushels of corn per acre, containing nine acres, which I sowed to oats, and followed with one-half bushel of red top and one-half bushel timothy and one bushel alsike seed; this was three years ago. I cut oats which was not an extra crop, on account of wet weather. I got a fine stand of grass and elover, which I concluded to mow for hny the next year. It came on early and looked promising. The clover rather choksad the grass out, and in May was in full bloom, and only 8 or 10 inches high, and the first of June it was ready to cut for hay with scarcely any seed in it. I Shenstone, Lichfield, England, Estate of Sir Richard Cooper, Bart. of the most difficult plants to destroy, and it spreads rapidly. The creeping root stalks must be dug out or smothered out. If left unchoked in meadows or pastures it will quickly take the fields. Sorrel, Dock, Milkweed, Morning-glory, Ribgrass, Dandelion and Sow Thistle are all bad perennials and should be kept down. One of the most persistent perennials we have to deal with is Canada Thistle. This may be easily recognized by the creeping root- stalk. The method of eradication is really not the important question; the thing to do is to attack the Canada Thistle where- ever and whenever you find it and prevent it from spreading. The effectiveness of weed destruction depends upon prompt action and persi3tance, and a correct knowledge of the plants in question. By keeping up this work of destruction of weeds as they appear, and then sowing only clean seed grain, even very foul land may be made tolerably clean in four or five years. L. C. Brown. ABOUT ALSIKE CLOVER. Editors Indiana Farmer: 1 rend in Indiana Farmer of March 14th, an article on "Experience with Alsike Clover." b.v John S. Buzzard, which may be misleading to the general public. Mr. Buzzard did not give the kind of land he raised his bountiful crop of alsike upon, whicli I think he should have done, ns this is where. I think his article is misleading. I hnve had some little experience with this clover, here in the southeastern part o.' Daviess County, Indiana, and in a rich let it go until the grass was headed before I cut it, and by this time the clover had fallen down very badly. As to the seed getting in manure and taking everything, there is no danger, as I hauled all manure on the upland, and the clover scarcely got 5 or 6 inches high, and you never see any of it the second year, as was the ease with my meadow: except one very wet place in one corner of the field and it is there yet. Alsike is a wet land clover and will grow and do well in such land, but on anything like dry or rolling land let alsike alone. Sow the red or common clover, or else sow the mammoth, or sapling as some call it, and you won't get disappointed. Horace McCord. Spring is here and farmers are too busy to read, but let us halt our readers long enough to ask them to be careful with the team when starting into the hard work of breaking ground. Do no push them too hard the first few days. Let them have a- little time to toughen their muscles and harden their shoulders. See that the collars are kept clean and well oiled, and that the tired animals have good clean beds to lie on after their hard day's work. Farmers who want to keep accounts v.itli their neighbors, merchants, hired hands; with their fields, stock, etc., will find a little, 25c book published by the Orange Judd Co., just the thing to instruct them in the business. It contains sample accounts and forms that will enable any farmer to keep his accounts in a clear and satisfactory manner. Oreat Men oa Education. Roosevelt—To train boys and girls in merely literary accomplishments to the total exclusion of industrial, manual and technical training, tends to unfit them for industrial work; aud in real life most work is industrial. Dr. G. Stanley Hall—The germs and extracts of as many trades as possible must be introduced into the common schools. Dr. Eliot—The perception or discovery of the individual gift or capacity will often be effected in the elementary school, but more generally in the secondary school; and the making of these discoveries should be held 'one of the most important parts ___________ of the teacher's work. Supt. Samuel B. Orth, of Cleveland in National Educational Association — Our public schools should seek to discover the aptitude of the children and then develop them according to tlieir vocational desires. Prof. Angel, Chicago University—There is great need of domestic science and art in the primary and secondary schools. Club women of the state should urge the establishment of trade schools for young people. In order to get training in useful vocations it is now necessary to commit some crime and get into the reform school. Supt. Cooley, Chicago Schools—Vocational study must be the backbone of the high school of the future— manual training and household arts and business practice. Educators and school boards in their zeal to produce wise men should not forget that one of the chief == functions of the public school should be to give the child increased capacity for making a living. Professor D. O. Barto, University of Illinois—An education should aim first of all to fit one to earn his living. The marked tendency of the modern education is toward vocational training. Arthur W. Page in World's Work—But the problem of the trade training can never be solved until it becomes a part of the public school system. That is clear; and it is not generally recognized. This is the only machinery that can ever reach the great mass of the people. Dr. John Dewey—It is our present education which is one-sided and narrow. It is an education dominated almost entirely by the medineval conception of learning. It is something whieh appeals for the most part simply to the intellectual aspect of our natures, our desires to learn, to accumulate information, and to get control of the symbols of learning, not to our impulses and tendencies to make, to do, to create, to produce. The old education had for its purpose the enjoyments of the higher intellectual life. The new education has for its purpose useful activity. The old education sought culture for its own sake. The new education seeks culture for use. The old education would make learned men. The new education would make useful men; nse ful men in any part of the great field of human activity. That education is the best for any man which will develop in him in the highest degree the desire and power to do useful things. |
Tags
Comments
Post a Comment for Page 1