Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1877 — Noxious Weeds and Insects. [ARTICLE]

Noxious Weeds and Insects.

A short time since a friend asked us, What are weeds? We immediately replied, any plant, growing where it is not wanted. Then you would call portulacca a weed? Certainly! Fully as much so as any other variety of purslain, if it was self sown, and grew where it was not wanted. We are too apt to regard a weed as being something noxions in itself, when, if weeds be in their proper places, they occupy their own appropriate niche in the economy of nature, and have their legitimate use; whether in the arts, a 3 medicinal plants, for the beauty of their foliage, or blossoms; or, as with a comparatively few plants, as food for domestic animals or man. So with animals, birds and insects; they may have place in the economy of nature; the few are beneficial to man. When out of their proper places they are destroyed, but when useful they are sedulously cared for. Among those, very properly considered gs vile weeds, not only in the West, but everywhere in the North, are the clot, or, as it is generally called cockle burr, —Xantheum strumarium and, its more Southern relative the thorny clot buri, X. optnosum. The first, if ordinary pains be taken, is not hard to eradicte. The second is not so easy to destroy effectually, when they are natural to the soil. Neither of these, however, are so difficult to manage as the weeds called beggar ticks, Rkhus chrysanthemoides , and beggar lice, Cynoglossum Morritoni , a very constant tenant at will, of slovenly farmers, and, one by trespass upon the fields of their more careful neighbors. These may be taken as types of prominent noxious weeds in the West; for, whatever may be said of the Canada thistle East, it never has, and probably never will, become naturalized to the average prairie soil. But, in connection with weeds, certain Xantheum, Chrysanthemums, Cytwglossums , and even some numbers of the thistle family, are cultivated in gardens for their bloom, and are highly prized by florists and amateurs. Then, they are not weeds ; if they escape, and grow among other cultivated plants, they indeed become weeds —neither more nor less—and should be treated as such; so this brings us back to the original definition of weeds —a plant growing where it is not wanted. The more careful class of farmers and horticulturists do not allow weeds to trouble them seriously. They take them in time; for, any species taken while young is easily killed. It is only when, through neglect or from untoward weather, they get a foothold, they are difficult to eradicate. Weeds have ’even been called the friend of the farmer. Said a thorough farmer and careful cultivator, once: “If it were not for weeds we should have little incitement to cultivate—we should let crops pretty much take care of themselves, and in return we should only get what might be palled a volunteer crop. Yes!" continued he,-“ it is weeds, a warm soil and scarcity that brings Lirge returns, as the result, in the long run It has brought the English average of crops of every kind to double and treble that of our own, and will, in the end, bring our agriculture and horticulture to compete in yield with that of England. It takes work to get crops, and those who work with their brain usually get the best returns. The same thing may be said of noxious insects. They all have their places in the economy of nature. - Some years since, one of the most prominent horticulturists in the West —now dead—a leading member of the Illinois Horticultural Society, and of that live organization, the Alton Horticultural Society, lamented to ua that he feared they Bhould be obliged to give lip fine fruit culture at that favored locality. Said he: “We may fight, year after

year, the curculio and other noxious insects; we may kill our own, and keep them from breeding; but, for every good cultivator among cs, there are a dozen outsiders who have trees, the only use of which seems to.be for breeding-places to furnish the yearly stock, to make that reaped by careful cultivators cost them all it is worth.” Nevertheless, intelligent culture has won there. It is gradually working everywhere. It is easy to discriminate between the weed and crop. Whatever is not of the crop is a weed, and should be destroyed. Among insects it is not so easy to distinguish. We may destroy our best friends. Thus, a little entomological knowledge is a good thing. For instance, the squash-bug, f7or«M# trintti, is noxioqs to the l&rmer and horticulturist. It feeds on plants of the cucumber family, preferably the squash. The soldier beetle, Armi tpinosa, looks very much like it to the ordinary observer, and vet the latter is one of tlie most persistant destroyers of vege-table-feeding insects known, and particularly of the Colorado potato beetle. They should be carefully preserved. Again, the eggs Of lady birds, hippodamia and coccinella, look somewhat like those of the Colorado beetle, and are often laid on the same leaf with them. The lady bird is a persistent destroyer of vegetable-feeding insects and their eggs, and should be carefully preserved; yet we have known people kill them, supposing them to be the cucumber beetle. This is, of course, inexcusable ignorance. These two insects are not at all alike. Such a person would Srobably feel indignant if he were told he id not know friend from foe. We presume the cucumber beetle has its place In the economy of nature; it certainly is not beneficial to tlie gardener. And this brings us back to the original proposition, animal, a bird, an Insect, or a plant, may or may not be noxious; it makes all the difference in the world where it is found. And it also brings us to the other proposition, that any plant growing where it is not wanted is a weed.— Prairie Farmer.