Weed seed

“ Prepare a bed, say four by six feet, or larger if you choose, and rake it off smoothly. The seeds are extremely minute. Take a pinch of them as if they were snuff, and then do by them what everybody ought to do by snuff,—sift them evenly all over the ground. Then just touch the ground with the tips of the rake-teeth, stirring it very lightly. Take a spade and spat the surface gently, so as to bring the soil home to the seed. Keep weeds away, and for the rest do nothing but enjoy the labor of your hands. It will come up of itself every year, and become a weed if you wish it to. ”

“ It is bad practice to continue deep harrowing until the seeding time of any small grain or grass planted in a dry part of the year. Firmness is wanted in the soil.
The Weed Seed.—The seeds of tilled crops are planted in ground containing much weed seed, and no harm may result. The cultivation needed to keep the soil loose, or to prevent evaporation, destroys the weeds. Grass, clover, alfalfa, and like seeds are put into the ground to occupy it to the exclusion of other plants for several years, as a rule, and no tillage can be given. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To some extent Nature thus confines the multiplication of weeds within limits. Botanists assert that these limits are prescribed, and that they cannot be passed. If it were not so, the seed of a single thistle would reproduce itself so rapidly as in a few years to cover with its progeny the entire surface of our planet.
Our ground was singularly troubled with the rag-weed, which we found was immensely prolific. There were numerous other kinds also that came up all over the field, and it appeared to me that those which produced the most seeds threw up the rankest growth. ”

“ Encouragement to seed-growing is given by the holding of seed fairs, and bulletins are issued on weeds, the methods of treating seed-wheat against smut and on other subjects. Collections of weed seeds are issued to merchants and others to enable them readily to identify noxious weed seeds. The Seed Control Act of 1905 brings under strict regulations the trade in agricultural seeds, prohibiting the sale for seeding of cereals, grasses, clovers or forage plants unless free from weeds specified, and imposing severe penalties for infringements. ”

“ There are a few weeds, like Canada thistle and quack-grass, that may infest any crop of farm or garden, but in most cases, whether to call a weed very bad depends on the nature of the crop grown, the size of the weed-seeds and their time of ripening.
Some weeds have a very wide distribution, thriving all around the world in temperate climates, while others are more limited in range; some thrive only in dry, thin, sandy soil and others in wet soils. ”

“ Aside from its effect in the prevention of weeds, early cultivation is of great value in breaking up the crust that packs firmly around the tender growing stems of plants, and that seriously interferes with their growth. It is also, like all surface cultivation, of aid in the conservation of moisture in the soil.
Importance of Not Allowing Weeds to Go to Seed.—A common source of weed infection is often found in the few weeds that are allowed to go to seed toward the end of the growing season in the maturing crop or after the crop has been gathered. ”

“ These produce such plenty of seeds, that it is very difficult to clear a field of them, if once they are suffered to grow till the seeds ripen. An extremely common weed in gardens and by roadsides is shepherd’s-purse, which is a very good specimen of the pouch-bearing plants of this tribe, its seed-vessels being exactly the figure of a heart. Lady-smock is 281often so abundant a weed in wet meadows as to make them all over white with their flowers. ”

“ During this long period of cultivation there seems to be no record or even indication of varieties. In many temperate and tropical countries it has become a frequent weed in cultivated fields.
Description.—From a cluster of slightly divided radical leaves branching stems rise to heights of 2 to 21⁄2 feet. Toward their summits they bear much divided leaves, with linear segments and umbels of small whitish flowers, followed by pairs of united, hemispherical, brownish-yellow, deeply furrowed "seeds," about the size of a sweet pea seed. These retain their vitality for five or six years. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The seed of an Italian weed had been introduced with their corn, and was discovered in Switzerland!
Weeds are an extremely interesting group. A proverb about the hardiness and multiplication of weeds can be discovered in almost every language. "Ill weeds grow apace," Unkraut verbessert nicht, and so on. They are very common. In fact weeds, wayside, and freshwater plants, have by far the widest distribution of all. There are twenty-five species which can be found over at least half the entire land surface of the earth, and more than a hundred occupy a third of it. ”

“ The result of an examination of the plant, which is of a leguminous description, by the acting chemical analyser to the government, shows that the seeds contain nearly as much nitrogenous substances as some of the chief varieties of Indian peas and beans; and hence the nutritive value of the seed should be taken as equivalent to any of the other leguminous grains. The weed is said to grow all over the Deccan and southern Mahratta country. ”

“ Thistles can be discouraged by cultivation, and we are so used to them that we know how to go about the job, but the new things that are coming into the country with every batch of mill feed or seed grain are usually mysteries as to their habits until they have been firmly established. Having secured a copy of the government weed-book, the nature-student has been hunting for the plants described, and between the railroad right of way and the neighbouring fields has found almost every noxious weed described. ”

“ It is said that if no seeds were brought into the land by wind or manure, or growth, the stock of weeds might be eradicated in eight years. But so long as corners and fence edges are reserved as weed-nurseries, to furnish an annual supply of seed, no one need fear that gardening will become too easy from want of work.
We know of but two reasons for letting weeds grow to any size. In a large garden, when all the ground is not to be planted at once, the reserved portions may be suffered to sprout all the weeds, and when six or eight inches high, if turned under, they will furnish good manure. ”

“ It affects a dry soil, and open situation; in such there is no necessity to give any particular directions for its cultivation, as it comes up readily from seed spontaneously scattered, so much so as sometimes to prove a troublesome weed. ”

“ To some farmers it often seems a small matter to allow a few plants of pig-weed, purslane, tumble weed and weeds of other kinds to go to seed in the garden, but absolute cleanliness should be the only rule in this particular, and it is by far the most economical in practice in the long run. It requires but little labor and saves much useless expense to destroy weeds that are going to seed. If the preventives for weeds suggested are closely followed hand weeding will be reduced to a minimum and will often be unnecessary with any crop. ”

“ Butter and Eggs. Toad-Flax. Linaria vulgaris Hill. Linaria Linaria (L.) Karst. Flowers yellow and orange; seeds dark brown or black, flat, circular or oval, surrounded by a broad wing-margin, the wing notched and covered by numerous fine radiating ridges, the surface of the seed roughened by numerous projecting points, seed, including its wing, 1.5–2 mm. long. Introduced from Europe. A vigorous weed in meadows, spreading by seeds and by root stocks.
Fig 166. Moth Mullein. Verbascum Blattaria L.
Moth Mullein. ”

“ Within a few days there will be a crop of weed seedlings. Demolish them, rewater and allow a few days to elapse on the chance of a second crop appearing, after which it will be safe to do the planting. It is a good scheme to use a flour or powdered-sugar shaker for very small seeds, instead of trying to sow them by hand. When seeds are large enough to handle individually, like hollyhocks, push them into the soil with the point of a pencil or a wooden-skewer, half an inch apart in rows one inch apart. ”

“ It remains to mention the most common weed found in imported alfalfa seed—the English or Ribbed plantain, or, as it is more generally called in the West, Buck-horn or Rib grass. It is a difficult weed to eradicate, lots of seed containing any noticeable percentage of it should be rejected. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If it is warm and early, the seed may be planted by the fifth of May. After planting, examine the seed often. If the beans are decaying instead of coming up, plant over again, and repeat this process until there are three or four strong plants within three or four inches of each pole. Let the hills be five feet apart each way, hoe often, and do not tolerate a weed. ”

“ See to it that not only the weeds are pulled but that every inch of soil surface is broken up. It is fully as important that the weeds just sprouting be destroyed, as that the larger ones be pulled up. One stroke of the weeder or the fingers will destroy a hundred weed seedlings in less time than one weed can be pulled out after it gets a good start. Use one of the small hand-weeders until you become skilled with it. Not only may more work be done but the fingers will be saved unnecessary wear. The skilful use of the wheel hoe can be acquired through practice only. ”

“ It sticks to the furry and hairy coats of animals and again is carried along.
"Did you ever observe the seed of wild carrot? It, too, is arranged with clinging points all around and about its seed. If you should give just a little attention to the subject of the means of distribution of wild seeds you would have a greater respect for the ways and means of Nature.
"Here is another discouraging side to the weed question. Weeds produce so many, many seeds! Look at a single stalk of plantain. This stalk does not stand for one seed capsule, but all up and down the stalk are the seeds ”

“ And first, in the security bred of many harmless marriages, it had been forgotten that Love is no hot-house flower, but a wild plant, born of a wet night, born of an hour of sunshine; sprung from wild seed, blown along the road by a wild wind. A wild plant that, when it blooms by chance within the hedge of our gardens, we call a flower; and when it blooms outside we call a weed; but, flower or weed, whose scent and colour are always, wild! ”

“ Now, both Uncle Rufus and Agnes particularly showed Sammy which were the infant beets and which the weeds. It is a fact, however, that there are few garden plants grown for human consumption that do not have their counterpart among the noxious weeds.
The young beets, growing in scattered clumps in the row (for each seed-burr contains a number of seeds) , looked much like a certain weed of the lambs’-quarters variety; and this reddish-green weed pretty well covered the beet bed.
Tess and Dot had gone to a girls’ party at Mrs. ”

“ Meadows and pastures, especially where the land is not fertile, abound in weeds that require two years or more to produce seeds, such as narrow-leaved dock, bitter dock, bull thistle, carrot, teasel, two kinds of mulleins, night-flowering catchfly, evening primrose, several kinds of fleabane, ox-eye daisy, orange hawkweed, two or three kinds of plantain, Canada thistle, hound's tongue, stick seed, sow thistle, horse nettle, buttercups, toad flax, silvery cinquefoil, and many more, not excluding some annuals, like crab-grass, tickle grass, pigeon grasses. ”

“ A farmer buys clover seeds or grass seeds that were grown in some state that never before grew seeds that went onto his farm and thus he may get some new weeds. Seeds of alfalfa or some other crop bring new kinds of weeds, especially those of dodder. As every kind of weed goes onto a farm to stay there it follows that as a country becomes older the greater the number of kinds of weeds. ”