Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1877 — Killing Weeds. [ARTICLE]

Killing Weeds.

So long as eight million tons of useless weeds are raised annually by tile farmers of the United States, we cannot urge too frequently the means for their destruction. It is not merely because the same amount of vegetable, growth in useful crops would amount to sixty million dollars, but for the constant hinderances which they offer to neat husbandry, their injury to young and their seeds spoiling the sale of otherwise excellent products, that they should not he permitted to present such formidable drawbacks to good farming. It is now well understood that the true way to clear out annual weeds from the soii, is by sti rri ng 1 1 over and ove rt h rough the summer, just often enough to break the sprouts and kill the young plauts as they are coming through the surface; and that perennial weeds, and more particularly those which spread by the roots, are easily and effectually destroyed by smothering and keeping theta ploughed under; with rare ex*

ceptionss, as in the case of quack grass. A general truth, which will apply to the processes for killing weeds, is that they may be destroyed when just starting from the ground with onetenth the labor required a week or t wo later, and one-twentieth of the work when full grown. The farmer must therefore make provision to command ready labor at the critical time when it will accomplish the most, and it would be better to pay two or three dollars a day to laborers at the most favorable moment, than only halfa dollar after thfe weeds have grown. —Country Gentleman.