Part 5

14. Clean up and avoid leaving any vacant or out of the way places for breeding ground.

15. Where practicable, remove fences and cultivate to the gutters of the highway.

16. Keep some sheep.

17. When once begun, continue the work thoroughly from year to year, giving no quarter to weeds. This is the easiest in the long run and the royal way.

18. Where hand labor is employed, it is far less expensive and much easier to keep weeds down by raking or hoeing once a week than by going over the ground much less frequently.

The habits of a weed determine to a great extent the best mode of fighting it. Certain remedies suggest themselves for creeping perennials, like quack grass and toad flax, while different treatment is best for narrow-leaved dock; and still a different mode of attack may be adopted for crab grass and purslane.

Weeds are annuals, as pigweeds, crab grass, purslane; biennials as bull thistle and mulleins; perennials, like quack grass, Canada thistle, ox-eye Daisy.

Will it pay? The annual cost of successfully fighting a weedy farm of 100 acres in Ontario has been found to be about $75. Good cultivation in the long run pays a greater profit than slipshod culture. It not only kills the weeds, but keeps the soil in condition for securing good crops. It conserves moisture.

Perennial plants cannot gain any if the green leaves are not allowed to appear. The nourishment stored in the root stocks underground will aid the plant to send up slender leaves and if these remain, the plants gain and recruit, but if the leaves start underground and are cut off before coming to the light, these root stocks are drawn on again to furnish food to start more leaves and thus, in time become exhausted.

SEEDS OF MICHIGAN WEEDS.

ASCOMYCETES.

=Ergot.= Claviceps purpurea. This is a poisonous fungus, not a seed, mentioned here because it is frequently found as an outgrowth of the grain of many grasses, such as rye, timothy, red top. To mature spores, it must pass to another stage requiring six months or more.

GRASS FAMILY. GRAMINEAE.

=Quack-Grass. Couch-Grass.= Agropyron repens (L.) Beauv. Florets about 1 cm. long, 5-nerved at the short-awned apex: grain seldom produced and still less frequently found apart from the floral glume and palea, linear, about 4 mm. long, base abruptly acute, apex rounded, rounded on the back or outside, inside concave. Our worst weed. Introduced from Europe.

=Wild Oat.= Avena fauta L. Freed from chaff the floral glume is firm, rough, brown, thinly hairy, about 15 mm. long, awn from near the middle 2-4 cm. long with several firm twists, abruptly bent near the middle, the true grain seldom separated from the firmer floral glume. A bad weed in Oregon and California, seldom seen in Michigan.

=Field Chess.= Bromus arvensis (L.) Not often seen in this country; floral glume 6-7 mm. long bearing an awn rather longer; grain much like that of B. secalinus which see. Introduced from Europe.

=Soft Chess.= Bromus hordeaceus L. (Bromus mollis). Floral glume extending beyond the grain, 5-7 nerved, 6-9 mm. long, grain rounded on the back, shape of a shallow boat, 6.5 mm. long, palea thin with comb-like teeth on the margins. Waste places, thin meadows. Introduced from Europe.

=Smooth Brome-grass.= Bromus racemosus L. Florets about 9 mm. long, awn 6-10 mm. long; longer, softer, thinner, with longer awn than found in florets of B. secalinus which see. Not often seen in this country. Introduced from Europe.

=Chess Cheat.= Bromus secalinus L. Florets swollen a little above the middle, the floral glume rounded on the back, obscurely 7-nerved, 6-7 mm. long, an awn 3-4 mm. long, more or less; palea covering the concave side, each edge bearing a single row of stiff hairs; glume and palea closely adhering to the grain. Introduced from Europe. A weed in wheat fields.

=Barren Brome Grass.= Bromus sterilis L. Floral glume minutely roughened, adhering to the grain; 5-7 nerved; 11-15 mm. long; compressed; concave in section. Introduced from Europe, becoming common in the state.

=Sand-Bur. Bur-Grass.= Cenchrus tribuloides L. Spikelets consisting of the grain and its coverings, broad oval, somewhat flattened, about 7 mm. long, thinly covered by stiff, straight, barbed, prickles, 2-5 mm. long, making a disagreeable and formidable bur, often common on sandy land. Native of this country.

=Bermuda Grass.= Cynodon Dactylon L., Pers., (Capriola Dactylon (L.) Kuntze). Floral glume enclosing the grain, smooth, light colored, oval to half-oval, 1.5 to 2 mm. long, in cross section with two long sides and a short side half as long; grain light brown, obovate to oval, a small nipple at the larger end.

The plant seeds in hot countries but not in cool, temperate regions; spreading chiefly by coarse, hard rootstocks. Introduced.

=Small Crab-Grass.= Digitaria humifusa Pers. Panicum lineare Kroach. Syntherisma linearis (Kroch.) Nash. Spikelets in the rough, before severe rubbing, ovoid or oblong, flattened, 2 mm. long, first glume minute, second and third as long as the spikelet, soft with very short hairs, one of them 3-nerved, the other 5-nerved; floret after severe rubbing, brown to black, smooth, floral glume of the rounded side curving over the edges below covering with their edges about two-thirds of the palea. Introduced from Europe; becoming troublesome on thin lawns.

=Large Crab-Grass. Finger Grass.= Digitaria sanguinalis (L.) Scop. Panicum sanguinale L. Syntherisma (L.) Nash. Spikelets before severe rubbing, oblong, acute, 2.5-3.5 mm. long, first glume on flattened side minute, second on rounded side about half as long as the spikelet, pubescent or nearly smooth, third glume more or less pubescent, 5-7-nerved; floret, after severe rubbing, smooth, edges of floral glume thin. Introduced from Europe. Roots very tough and coming from the lower joints.

=Barnyard Grass.= Echinochloa Crus-galli (L.) Beauv. Panicum Crus-galli L. Florets oval, white, yellowish gray or brown, 2.4-3 mm. long, plano-convex, glume on the convex side, highly polished, three obscure longitudinal nerves. Native of this country.

=Yard-Grass. Wire-Grass.= Eleusine Indica (L.) Gaertn. Florets light lead color or brown before threshing or much rubbing; grain dark, reddish brown, 1.2-1.4 mm., ovoid with the base abruptly pointed, 3 sided, the corners rounded, a vertical groove along one side; seen from the back with the groove side down and base toward the observer, starting from an oval spot near the base, 10-15 ridges on each side, extend downward and forward. Introduced from some warmer region of the Old World.

=Stink-Grass.= Eragrostis megastachya (Koeler) Link. Eragrostis major Host. Grain orange red or wine color .4-.6 mm. long. Broad oval to nearly circular, very slightly flattened, extremities slightly pointed, embryo within one edge near the base, a fine network of dark lines evident under a good lens. Introduced from Europe.