Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 July 1904 — Fatal to Noxious Weeds. [ARTICLE]

Fatal to Noxious Weeds.

Owners of lawns and grass plot* have great trouble every year in keeping them free from the pestiferous dandelion. A benevolent citizen who has experienced lots of this trouble writes to say that many people bring more of this trouble on themselves by trying to exterminate dandelions by cutting the plant off just below the ground. A great deal of this is done early in the spring by people collecting young dandelion plants for “greens,” they being an excellent and wholesome pot herb. This, it Is said, does not kill the plant, but causes each root to throw out several shoots, and thus multiplies the number of dandelions. The correspondent mentioned writes to impress his fellow sufferers that if when they cut off the dandelion plant below the ground they will drop a pinch of salt or a teaspoonful of coal oil on the root left in the ground it will effectually kill It This may seem a troublesome job, but to one who is set on keeping his grass plot clear of dandelions it will in the end save a lot of trouble.