Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1894 — A COSTLY WEED. [ARTICLE]

A COSTLY WEED.

THE RUSSIAN THISTLE COSTS US FOUR MILLION A YEAR. Unknown a Faw Years Ago it Now Overruns Many Farms In the Northwest and is Still Spreading. A box five feet square and over three high was carried into the room of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and, Senator Hnnsbrough presiding, the cover was quickly knocked up and off therefrom. A big brush heap was the apparent contents of the mysterious inwardness of the Senator’s box. Appearances, however, are deceitful everywhere in general and uround the Senate end of the Capitol in particular. The box did not contain a brush heap, but the ugliest, meanest, wickedest weed this country has ever known or can know —the Russian thistle. A few years ago it was unknown in this country, and only travelers in the trans-Ural regions of southeastern Russia had overseen it. Rut it is now in full possession of many a good farm in the Dakotas, and is spreading its domain towards every point of the compass, with the twin staes ns its center and starting point, The plant in Senator llanshrough's committee room is probably full grown, for it is five feet in in diameter, fully three feet high and weighs twenty-four pounds, It is the result of one season’s growth from a single seed, the plant being an annual, The root is comparatively small, being about half an inch in diameter ami six to twelve inches long, That part of the plant which is above ground forms a dense, bushy mass full of branches, When it iB young and green it looks very harm, less and its soft, fuzzy, tender and juicy little leaves scattered abundantly all over its myriads of stems look not only edible, but fuirly tempting from a bovine point of view. When the long hot summer days of the subarctic summer huve, however, brought Mr. Russian Thistle to maturity, and the juicy little leaves drop off, and the prickly stems harden and toughen in the dry nir and the plant keeps on growing bigger and Digger and choking out every other growing thing near it, then it is that the farmer recognizes in this newcomer a terrible foe. At every half Inch on the stems of the thistle there Is a sharp sp[no about half an inch long, which grows harder and sharper as time passes. The Dakota farmers find it. impossible to plow their fields when once the t histle has taken possession of it. The feet of the horses are cut raw in a single day’s work, and at. the end of a week are a festering mass of raw flesh. It is only by having leather boots made and worn on their plow teams that they can do their fall work. The poorer farmers wrap rags around the ankles of their horses, and so protect them.

Yet, to plow fields that have once become the prey offthe Russian thistle is a hopeless and usually a fruitless thing to do. Plowing only puts in the ground millions of seeds to germinate another season and ruin the wheat, barley or rye that may be sowed. Where each prickly spine in the mature plant joins the stem there is a little greenish black kernel with a winged blossom on it. The thing looks like a microscopic shuttlecock. This is the seed. A careful estimate computes the number in Senator llanshrough’s specimen at the Capitol to be 200,000. In the fall the tough, well-braced plant breaks loose from its root and gets out on a journey of propagation. When, as often happens, the prairies are swept by fires the Russian thistle diversifies its evil career by adding tenfold to the fury of the fire. A blazing, burning bush, speeding before the wind, will spread, the flames to grain stacks, barns and houses more swiftly and surely than did Sampson’s foxes in the grain fields and vineyards of the Philistines. In this way many miles of good wire fence are destroyed annually. But Is as a weed that the thistle is most dreaded. It is tenacious of life and disputes successfully with every other growing thing for the ground it needs to wax great upon. It drives every living herd out of its way, and as it multiplies more rapidly than any other contemporary it holds fast all it once gains. Wheat is injured 20 per cent, by it the second season after it appears. After that the farmer hardly dares sow his fields less his loss should be total. Barley and rye fare almost as badly as wheat. Oats and millet have an even chance against it if they are well put in on good ground. Where the thistle has got into a grain field it makes life a burden for the threshers. They can hardly get gloves tough enough to withstand the Mharp cuts from the thistle spines. Flax is usually a total failure when the thistle once appears in it. It was in flax seed imported from Russia by some Mennonites in Bon Homme County, 8. D., twenty years ago, that the weed was first brought to this country. By some it is said that these Mennonite Russians sewed the plant for purposes of forage. But this is wholly gratuitous conjecture. Nobody regards the plant as suitable for forage, although sheep will eat it in the spring when it is juicy and tender, and as it is an annual, hard grazing might kill it out. But. there is little prospect that the Northwestern farmers will increase their flocks for the purpose of combating the Russian thistle. They are too uncertain about the supply of subsistance during the rest of the year when the thistle is no longer succulent and other fodder crops are 1 not to be had. Besides, the price of wool offers no compensating incentive and mutton is only dead sheep when your flock is fifteen hundred miles from market. That the thistle is spreading, is indeed coming rapidly eastward, there can be no doubt. It first appeared in Bon Homme county, South Dakota, and from there spread northward along the,Jim river, for a long time seeming to be unable to cross that stream and advance eastward. At last, like the Yankee who crossed the Connecticut river by walking up to its source, where he could step across, the thistle leaped over the Jim several hundred miles to the north of Bon Homme county. It

also went on to the west along thw Chicago and Northwestern railroad t* Pierre, on the Missouri. With thw building of various railroads the weed traveled north and west as far as the Northern Pacific and to Bismarck cm* the Missouri. It is now at the international boundary, where the fertile Red River valley ceases to be American and becomes the domain of the old lady across the Atlantic. Indeed, this big weed of Senator Hansbrough’e came from Lamoure in North Dakota, not a hundred miles from the Manitoba line. The Agricultural Department sent out inquiries to correspondents in every county in North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, northern lowa, Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska. Over 300 replies have come, showing its widely and rapidly extending march of destruction. It is already in St. Paul and Minneapolis, where it first appeared in the stockyards, and is spreading all over the suburban streets to disfigure them into the hateful presence. At Hudson, acrot* the Mississippi and the Sf. Croix rivers, it is to bo seen. It, is even found south as far as Fan Claire. It has got as far us Arbor Lodge, Secretary Morton’s home in Nebraska, on its journay to Texas. Out in Wyoming, it is now common, and Denver chronicles its unwelcome arrival there under the shadow of I'ike’s Peak. Northwestern Iow» knows what it is, and the eastern and southern parts of the State expect it to visit them next year. Like the English sparrow, it enjoys railroad travel, and as that little foreigner hopped from New York to Utah in' ten years it is not unlikely that thus other foreign visitor may got over the country quite as fast. It. is estimated that, the Russian pest has now spreud over 48,000 square miles of territory, and that the borders of this array are constantly increasing at, the rate of ten to fifteen miles a year. There are over a million acres of wheat land enbraced in this western thistledom, and careful estimates at the Agricultural Department last, yoar place the loss at $2,000,000 from tails weed alone. This past, year it, Ims caused a loss in that region, It iB calculated, exceeding $4,500,000. At this geometrical ratis it is easy to conjecture what is going to happen in a very few yenrs. The danger is so appalling that the States and Congress have been asked to provide relief and protection. Senator Hansbrough has introduced a bill providing a scheme of warfure to exterminate the thistle by digging it lip before It goes to seed. This seems to be the only way to fight it. It, goes to seed about August, 15. It it is plowed before that time it ia likely to die without hope of poster! Iy.—[Washington Star.