Common Weeds of the Farm & Garden

INTRODUCTION: AGRICULTURE has been defined by the Bishop of Newcastle as A controversy with weeds. The growth of weeds certainly constitutes one of the chief troubles of the tiller of the soil, for weeds are too often luxuriant where a good cultivated crop is awaited. The average farmer is quite familiar with the ordinary tillage operations which conduce to clean farming, and the gardener is able by intense cultivation to keep down weeds, but there are many methods which may be successfully employed in combating a given species which are not generally known. The agricultural Press testifies almost daily to the fact that information on the best means of eradicating weeds is badly needed by all concerned in the growth of crops, and I have long been convinced that the subject was deserving of special treatment. Careful thought quickly crystallised into the idea that a volume dealing with weeds and their destruction, and summarising under one cover the information scattered in many volumes published in this and other countries, would be of practical value. I hope, therefore, that the following pages will supply a real need, and prove useful to all engaged in the various branches of agriculture. It would be a great pleasure to me should the critic complain that the use of the word Common in the title of this volume is misplaced, as one of the artists, who experienced some difficulty in obtaining certain species for illustration, humorously suggested The term, however, appears to fit the text. In the third week of August of the past year, when examining a field of standing wheat, I spent about ten minutes collecting such weeds as were most easily found within an area of perhaps little more than 100 square yards. In this small plot were quickly gathered the following twenty-nine species, eighteen of which were already illustrated for the pages of this book Convolvulus arvemis Senecio vulgar is Polygonum Convolvulus Galium Aparine Polygonum Aviculare Vicia sativa Matricaria inodora Rumex sp. Tussilago Farfara Plantago major Mentha arvensis Lychnis alba Sinapis arvensis Euphorbia exigua Sonchus arvensis Stellaria media Alopecurus agrestis Agrostis sp. Papaver sp. Ranunculus arvensis Triticum repens Poa annua Viola sp. Veronica sp. Potentilla Anserina Myosotis sp. sEthusa Cynapium Scandix Pecten- Veneris Alchemilla arvensis Most of these species are troublesome weeds, and it may be added that those marked with an asterisk were abundant. In a wheat field in which the crop was already cut were found thirteen species of weeds, several being serious pests and in a field of peas was an almost overwhelming quantity of Field Bindweed Convolvulus arvensis, Black Bindweed Polygonum Convolvulus, and Perennial Sow Thistle Sonchns arvensis, besides many other weeds...