Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1870 — Eradicating Thistles. [ARTICLE]

Eradicating Thistles.

A summer fallow will eradicate thistles, and do it by keeping the thistles from seeing the light. The beauty here is to begin early In plowing. This prevents the first crop from appearing. In this way, by a regular course of four plowing, there is no chance for the pests to see the light. They are thus kept in the dark not only in the summer, but the two winters are added, making a continuous dearth of a year and a half. This will kill them. We have known three plowings to do it, and that is all that is necessary where the plowing is deep and the ground all turned down, so that no strips or careless furrows give chance for the thistles to appear by the next plowing, or if the last plowing, in the fall. Care must be taken, and this pest can be removed as well as not. And land thus treated, plowed three or four timee, with the numerous thistle roots and y oung shoots rotted in it, is a bed fit for any crop. No manure is needed, as the land that grows thistles successfully is not poor land. But the working the soil is the greatest benefit. If a plowing is given it late in the fall 6r early winter, whether after the summer treatment or preceding it, all the better; this may be the fourth plowing. It would be best were it done the fall before, and then plowed a little deeper than usual. Three times plowing will then be sufficient the season following. The late plowing in the tall.will prevent any growth of the thistles by the first plowing time in the'spring, which may be late, for it will answer m the first plowing, and it may even be considered as one of the three plowings, thus necessitating but two plowings during the summer. But it wants to be done as it were in the winter. The frost will then have its - -effect upon the insects, seeds of weeds, weeds themselves, and the raw ground brought up from below. will become mellowed and partially decomposed, the process Of disintegration finished during the summer, so that there will be a great depth of thoroughly mellow, and some new soil, having most or all of the ingredients necessary to farming. It will take thistles such along time to penetrate this soil, that two plowings, besides the fall or winter plowing, will suffice. This in clay soil, or, as we know by experience, in drift, where there is considerable clay and much gravel and sand. In your low rich plains of rivermade soli, the thistles wiin>e too fast for the plow if passing but twice through the soil. In the old thistle districts like this, the pest is not considered at all; land is not valued at a dollar less in consequence. The thistles are probably worth as much in the manure they furnish as is the damage they do. A fallow is sure to clear them, or a heavy meadow will do about the same thing. There may be a few left, but they will dwindle, and must struggle for existence; a rich meadow is not the place for them, especially one prepared from a good fallow bed. The summer fallow as a means of eradicating the thistle has jeferenee more particularly to grain farms. Plowing favors the thistle in the ordinary treatment of the land. Hence our grain farms, before the dairying epoch, have had a hard time of it, as we well enough know ourselves. It was only by the. thorough work of three plowings that we succeeded. Fallows were made In those days. Since the introduction of the dairy, all is changed. There are few thistles, and these are becoming less. Grass is an obstruction to them, whether meadow or pasture, hut particularly meadow, and more particularly when heavy and kept heavy. Top-dressings are good for grass, but in general not for thistles. — Cor. Country Gentleman.

On a recent Sunday, as a Philadelphia lady was proceeding to church, she encountered a half-starved dog. Her feelings of pity were at once aroused, and she took the animal home and fed him high. She was just congratulating her-, self on her humanity, when the dog bit her husband so that he cannot recover, and had to be killed by a policeman to prevent him from tearing the lady into strips. It isn’t likely that she will meddle with any more dogs, unless she marries again. It must have been pretty warm in Albany the other day, for, according to a paper of that city, on that day a young man going down Broadway met two ladies and raised his hat, and before he got the hat on his head again, the sun burned his hair all "off, so that he is bald-headed. The Ncsrery.—The hearts of the ittle ones who receive the number for August will be more than delighted with Its pretty pictures and stories. Every family blessed with the presence of a child should take The Nursery. It will richly repay Its cost ($1.60 a year, with reductions to clubs,) in the happiness it will afford the children. Address John L. Shorey, 36 Biotnffold street, Boston, Mass. Evbby Saturday.—“ On the Cliff at Newport,” “ Odalisque,” “ A View oil Constantinople and Pera,” “Little Nell and Her Grandlather," “ Morning Calls," “ Virginia Drowned,” and “The Ketnm of the Herd,” aro the titles of the seven beautiful fuli-pago engravings in No 81, for July 30. This number also contains a portrait of the Due do Grammont, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, with biographical sketch, and the usual quantity of flesh reading matter. The publishers announce that they have secured, from the pen of Mr. Edmund Yates, a new eerial novel, entitled “Nobody’s Fortune,” due notice of tho appearance of which will he given. Flelds, Osgood & CO., Boston. $5.00 per year. 1