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.