Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 March 1875 — The Utility of Weeds. [ARTICLE]

The Utility of Weeds.

The questions have frequently been asked, with no little solicitude, “ Wliat is a weed? What were weeds made for? Where is the line of demarkation between noxious weeds and useful plants?” By certain writers it has been stated that “ a weed is a plant out of place,” which is far from feeing correct, as will be shown. In a leading agricultural journal the editor spoke of growing wheat-plants as weeds, because they appeared where other plants were being cultivated. A useful plant cannot properly be denominated a weed wherever it may be growing; nor can a weed properly receive the appellation of a useful plant. As nothing was formed in vain, so no plant is entirely useless; although no portion of it may be employed for any specific purpose in the arts. Useful plants may be divided into crop plants, herbs and’flowers, and all other vegetation may properly be termed weeds. Any plant that cannot be made to subserve some satisfactory purpose as a crop plant, as an herbiverous plant, or as a flowering plant, is a weed. The cerealia, such as rye, wheat, barley and oats, are useful plants. All leguminous plants, wherever they may appear, cannot properly he spoken of as weeds; nor can the grasses and flowers, even when growing in all their primeval wildness, be ranted with weeds. The repulsive ragweed (ambrosia arte mieiaefolia) the fireweed ( erechthites hierucifolia), Mayweed ( maruta cotula), Canada thistle (eirstum arvense), bull thistle (cirsium lanceolatum), and numerous other plants which are never Cultivated nor permitted to grow for utility or beauty are all weeds. Many plants that are useful to the apothecary and pharmaceutist for furnishing articles of commerce of a medicinal nature are not weeds, although their value is not commonly understood, and they are often treated in every respect as if they were weeds. Weeds constitute an important fertility to the soil. They are nature’s own’renovators of badlymanaged and impoverished land. When a husbandman fails to maintain a reno- \ ating system by which, the productiveness of his cultivated fields is kept from deterioration weeds appear to perform, by the slow process of vegetable growth and decay, what the tiller of the soi. should do with the implements of husbandry, with manure and compost, aided by the powerful agencies of frost, storms and sunshine. This enables ds to understand and to appreciate the fact That weeds afe more hardy than useful plants, as they were designed to flourish where jnany’ useful plants could never be brought to satisfactory maturity, even £ry the unremitting care of the cultivator. Weeds, by their growth and decay, will subdue and ameliorate a stubborn and barren soil, and eventually prepare an excellent seed-bed of fine mold, in -which delicate and tender plants may vegetate and coma. 1&> perfect maturity. | Some useful plants as well as weeds pos- ’ sess the power of taking hold of the fear- | ren clods of earth; and even solid gran- | ite, by exuding a pungent liquid, which will dissolve even the v itreous coating of glazed flower pots, and the spongioles will appropriate the minute particles to the-purposes of vegetable growth. In this way the red clever pliant operates as

an efficient snb-soiler, pulverizer and topdresser. The strong roots enter the indurated sub-soil, dissolve portions of the stubborn clods which hold the elements of fertility, employ the fertilizing atoms in building up its own stem and branches, and by decaying furnish a vast amount of choice pabulum, which is admirably adapted to the requirements of the growing wheat plant. If a stubborn and barren sub-soil be turned up to the surface by a trench plow 1 and be neglected weeds will bring the forbidding ground to an excellent state of fertility after the lapse of a few years. When the impressive command of the great Creator went forth that “ thorns also and thistles” should appear in the cultivated ground, and the fruitful fields were curbed for Father Adam’s sake, it was an amazing blessing in disguise. Weeds are a monitor to prompt the tiller of the soil to pulverize thoroughly and to keep the surface around growing plants quite free from every vegetable intruder. Weeds among growing crops are like hostile robbers, and although they are abundant they never exhaust the fertility ■of land unless the growth is removed from the field. Intelligent tillers of the soil understand the great advantage gained by shading the soil for the purpose of developing its fertility. If, for example, a plat of ground be covered for a few years with boards or with a pile of timber, so that all vegetation is destroyed, the fertility of the ground beneath the timber will be so much developed that the crop cultivated during the following year will be much larger on the shaded plat than around it. The sticky chickweed (cerastiurn tiscosum), the field chickweed (cerastium arveme) and the mouse-eared chickweed (cerastium vulgatum ), which appear in neglected fields, are among the most efficient renovators ot the vegetable kingdom, as the roots develop immense quantities of carbonaceous material in the soil, and the dense shade of the matted leaves and stems exerts a doubly fertilizing influence on the productiveness of any soil.—A. Y. Herald.