Tumbleweed

“ During the Middle Ages in southern Egypt and Arabia, and eastward, a small plant, with most of the peculiarities of our tumbleweed just described, was often seen, and was thought to be a great wonder. ”

“ I may end up in some worse place
But I’m going to make the test.”
“And I’m the soul of solid content,”
Said the pumpkin to the weed.
“Rather than take any chance at all
I’ll stay here and go to seed.”
But I’d rather be a traveling weed
Than a stationary squash.
“I know,” Hinman said. “You’re a pure-bred tumbleweed and no mistake. But most folks follow one business, and let the rest alone.”
“And it’s my observation that most folks are dissatisfied with what they’re working at but keep on doing it the rest of their natural lives just to try and vindicate their judgment,” Carver said. ”

“ Psoralea argophylla also develops perfect joints but fewer shoots usually make up the crown and it is therefore less conspicuous than P. floribunda. Psoralea esculenta is also a tumbleweed but the writer has not made an examination of the way in which it separates from the thick, tuberous, perennial root. ”

“ Tumbleweeds are funny! They do not fly in the air, but they go scurrying over the surface of the earth. They grow on the Western plains and in other places, and sometimes get to be as large as a bushel basket. ”

“ Don’t you see? I’ve loved two tumbleweeds before now—Dad and Bart—and I don’t feel quite up to loving a third. It’s a woman’s portion to sit and wait for bad news. So let’s go on just as we are.”
Three wagons rolled up the valley and pulled into the Half Diamond H.
“There comes Thanksgiving dinner,” said Carver. “Old Nate was down with us overnight. Likely he knew that I couldn’t afford to feed the grub-liners indefinitely so he said he’d ride down to Alvin and send up a bite for the boys. It appears like he’d sent it in tons; enough to run to next August. ”

“ After the breeze has died the debauched old tumbleweeds are everywhere to be seen, piled up against brush, choking the ditches, filling the roads. Their beautiful spherical shapes have been frayed out so that they look sodden and weary and done up. But their seeds have been scattered abroad over the land.
Wherever we found water, there we found ducks. The irrigating ditches contained many bands of a dozen or fifteen; the overflow ponds had each its little flock. The sky, too, was rarely empty of them; and the cries of the snow geese and the calls of sandhill cranes were rarely still. ”

“ When mature, its stems are more woody than those of ordinary tumbleweeds, and the spines or little thorns are hard. Sometimes the plants are compact, nearly round; sometimes, when growing close together, they fail to have the rounded form. They may be one, two, or three feet high, and from eighteen inches to six feet across. The leaves, flowers, and seeds are very small. In the later summer the stems have a purple or rose color. The seeds mature after the first of September. The plants and seeds should be destroyed by burning. ”

“ Another season and the wheat fields of the Strip would be invaded by the riffraff that always came south for the harvest and followed it north. [270] Then the tumbleweeds would be gone. Now they had rallied to lend a helping hand to one of their own kind, one man who had understood. And as she watched them toiling at these unfamiliar tasks she experienced a thrill of sympathy for the men who had helped to make homes possible for others and now found no place in the new scheme of things for themselves. For the riders of the waste places had ever been the vanguards of civilization. ”

“ Tumbleweeds.—Incidentally, the foregoing pages contain some account of seeds and fruits that are carried by the aid of wind, in connection with their distribution by other methods; but there are good reasons for giving other examples of seeds carried by the wind. There is a very common weed found on waste ground and also in fields and gardens, which on good soil, with plenty of room and light, grows much in the shape of a globe with a diameter of two to three feet. ”

“ Conservative, slow and safe, like Hinman said; that’s us every time. But we’re going to make one more little investment in tumbleweeds before we settle down.”
A few hours later he went into conference with Nate Younger.
“If you’ll get most of the brand owners that operated in the western half of the Strip to sign an agreement whereby I get half the market price of any of their stray steers I bring into Caldwell I’ll outfit a combing party and go in after them,” Carver offered.
“They’d sign up quick enough,” Younger stated. “Jump at the chance in fact. ”

“ A few species are already abundant and some like Amaranthus graecizans appear to flourish better than on the prairies of the interior. The past summer a number of cornfields about Columbus were covered with very large tumbleweeds and during the winter a number of hedgerows were filled with them, presenting an appearance quite as striking as anything the writer has seen along this line.
The following is a list of the Ohio plants which may develop as tumbleweeds. Those with a question mark have not been seen by the writer to act as tumbleweeds and a few are given on the authority of Dr. ”

“ On the farm there grows a weed called the tumble-weed. When October comes, the wind breaks the stalk. As round as a dandelion puff-ball, the tumble-weed is as large as a bushel basket. When the wind blows from the north the tumble-weeds start across the field, toward the fence-corners. That evening, when the wind changes, the tumble-weed starts rolling across the meadow toward the same fence from which it started in the morning. With the new day, the tumble-weed takes up fresh journeys. At night the wind rises, and tho the farmer and his flocks sleep, not the tumble-weeds. ”

“ As it spreads along it tends to force out other plants.
"This weed, like the wild carrot, is really very lovely. Could such weeds be properly held down in small garden areas they would be very ornamental. I saw a little flower garden once, quite beautiful, with two small clumps, one of wild mustard and one of field daisy, among the other flowers.
"The seeds of the wild mustard, like those of the plantain and other weeds, get in with the grain seed and so cause constant trouble. Farmers feel that such weeds must be thoroughly gotten out of the fields. ”

“ As soon as a weed is seen, it should be pulled up, or Dutch-hoed off, and, if it have not a perennial root, straightway buried in the garden or used as a mulch round shrubs or herbaceous plants. In addition to its primary object, the mere pulling up of weeds, or hoeing off their heads, is of the utmost value in loosening the surface of the ground, and so checking evaporation and the conduction of heat. In fighting with weeds, garden flowers will be much assisted by deep cultivation, rich soil, and a provision of those general conditions which conduce to their health and vigour. ”

“ As regards any particular weed, the cultivator should learn all he can respecting its duration, seeding capacity, method of dissemination, the depth and spread of its root-system, and any other particulars which enable him to judge when and how to attack it. It is only necessary to see the victory of such drought-resisting weeds as Hieracium pilosella, Plantains, Hypochaeris, on lawns to realise how weeds may win in the struggle for existence with the finer grasses. ”

“ The Tuberose is a gross feeder, and succeeds best in light loam, but will grow in any moist rich soil.
Its complete requisites are heat, water, and manure. If these are proportionate, no matter how much there may be, the plant will consume it.
And here is an incident in Tuberose culture (backed by good authority) where Nature, scorning slower methods of evolution, "got on a hustle" and produced a new variety on the spot. ”

“ These are minute weed seedlings, but yet slightly rooted, and easily treated by simple dislodgment. A hot, windy day is a good time to hoe between your plants, because the wind and sun kill the uprooted weeds in a short time. They dry up, and there is but little to remove. On a damp cloudy day if a disturbed bit—no matter how small—of the pestiferous couch grass rolls near the base of a plant and remains there, it will send down its roots among those of the plant, and it is almost impossible to get them out without taking the plant up. ”

“ All coarse and dark coloured weeds, however tempting at first sight, are to be avoided. The sprawling tangles that one steps over in traversing the boulders and the slimy masses of sea-weed, everywhere cast upon the coast, are quite unfit, however fine the specimens, or strong the desire to possess them. Neither must much value be attached to any weed cast up by the surge. The only trustworthy specimens are those chipped from the rock in situ and brought away without being detached from their natural basis. ”

“ Often you may find little plants growing on the bigger ones; sometimes a well-established weed may be almost covered by small seaweeds of many kinds, brown, green, or red. These attach themselves to the big plant in much the same way as they would to a rock, but only use it as a place of anchorage, and do not tap its food supply, as the parasitic mistletoe does to the land-plants. In the same way you may find numbers of seaweeds planted on shells or growing on the backs of crabs. ”

“ As a rule the annual weeds are kept under with comparative ease, it usually being the perennials with spreading roots which give the real trouble. In preparing a piece of ground, every piece of such root—be it of couch grass, bindweed, or what not—should be picked out and burnt. Then, if, through several seasons, every shoot of perennial weed be pulled off directly it is seen, they will eventually be subdued or even vanquished. ”

“ Common throughout the Southwest, particularly on overgrazed rangelands and deserted clearings, this plant, also called “matchweed” or “turpentine-weed,” often occurs in almost pure stands. The resinous stems burn readily, throwing off black smoke. Most abundant on dry hills and mesas, 3,000 to 6,000 feet elevation, this perennial is found from 1,000 to 7,000 feet, blossoming from June to October. Bees obtain nectar and pollen from the small but densely crowded, yellow flower clusters. ”

“ All these are very easily eradicated when small but the red root is an exceedingly47 hard weed to pull once it has got a grip on the ground and it must be taken out root and all or it will come up again with not one but several stout stalks, and a more tenacious hold than ever on the soil; it is one of the weeds which are constantly eluding detection until they have gained several inches in height when they defy the hoe and cultivator and call for strenuous hand work! ”

“ A somewhat taller species, with very white starry flowers, is found on gravelly banks under the shade of shrubs near the small lakes formed by the Otonabee river, N. Douro, where also, we find the downy seeded species known as “Thimble-weed,” Anemone cylindrica, from the cylindrical heads of fruit. The “Thimble-weed” is not very attractive for beauty of colour; the flower is greenish-white, small, two of the sepals being shorter and less conspicuous than the others; the plant is from 1 to 2 ft. high ”

“ You will also see on this side several cells in which these tiny spores are forming, ready to burst out and swim; for this green weed is merely a collection of cells, like the single-celled plants on land. Each cell [pg 370] can work as a separate plant; it feeds, grows, and can send out its own young spores.
This deep olive-green feathery weed (2, Fig. 1) , of which a piece is magnified under the next microscope (2, Fig. 3) , is very different. It is a higher plant, and works harder for its living, using the darker rays of sunlight which penetrate into shady parts of the pool. ”

“ Said Luther: “Sin is like the beard, the oftener it is cut off, the more shaving seems to be necessary!”
Perennial weeds continue to live and bear seeds from year to year. Some weeds of this class, as the quack-grass, sow-thistle, and the wild morning-glory, multiply from buds on underground parts as well as by seeds. They are the hardest of all to destroy. As the leaves manufacture the food that nourishes roots, by preventing the leaves from growing, the roots will starve—the surest way to kill perennial weeds, tho often hard to carry out. ”

“ Weeds under Cultivation.—For several years past the botanical department of Michigan Agricultural College has maintained a "weed garden," and has grown a hundred or more species of the most troublesome weeds in plots. Some curious results from the experiments are recorded by Prof. W. J. Beal in a paper read at the meeting, 1897, of the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science. The most vigorous and aggressive weeds seem to take on under cultivation the weakness and capriciousness of delicate cultivated plants. ”

“ Allow weeds to remain, and in an incredibly short time they will get such a start of the other plants in the bed that these will have received a check from which it will take them a long time to recover, when given an opportunity to do so by the removal of the enemy. There can be no compromise between weeds and flowering plants. One must give way to the other, and weeds will have it all their own way if given the ghost of a chance.
Every gardener should be the owner of a wheelbarrow, a hoe, a spade, an iron rake, a watering-pot, and a weeding-hook. ”

“ Your and Merton's time's too valyble. When weeds are pulled from right in and around vegetables, the rest can stand without harm for a while, till you can get around with the hoe and cultivator. This weedin' out business is 'specially important in rainy weather, for it only hurts ground to hoe or work it in wet, showery days, and the weeds don't mind it a bit. Warm, sunny spells, when the soil's a little dry, is the time to kill weeds. ”