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.
As crops of corn, potatoes, beans, turnips, beets and squashes are ready
to harvest at the close of one growing season they are molested more or
less by pigeon grasses, several pigweeds, purslane, crab-grass, barnyard
grass, tickle grass and a number of others.
In 1897 some seventy-five lots of timothy seeds were examined and the
following list of twenty-four species of weeds were found. Doubtless
other weeds may still be found in other lots of timothy seed. No sample
was entirely free from weeds. Pepper grass was most common, next
followed tumble weed and then shepherd's purse:
Amaranthus graecizans, Tumble weed.
Amaranthus retroflexus, Rough pigweed.
Anthemis Cotula, May weed.
Brassica arvensis, Charlock.
Brassica nigra, Black mustard.
Bursa Bursa-pastoris, Shepherd's purse.
Carduus arvensis, Canada thistle.
Carex straminea. A kind of sedge.
Chenopodium album, Pigweed.
Chenopodium filicifolium, Another kind of pigweed.
Lactuca Canadensis, Wild Lettuce.
Lepidium Virginicum, Wild Pepper-grass.
Onagra biennis, Evening primrose.
Panicum capillare, Hair grass, tickle grass.
Plantago lanceolata, Narrow-leaved plantain.
Plantago Rugelii, Rugel's Plantain, one of the broad-leaved plantains.
Poa compressa, Flat-stemmed poa, wire grass.
Potentilla Monspeliensis, Rough cinquefoil.
Prunella vulgaris, Self-heal.
Rumex Acetocella, Field or sheep sorrel.
Sisymbrium officinale, Hedge mustard.
Verbena angustifolia, Narrow-leaved vervain.
Verbena hastata, Blue vervain.
Verbena urticifolia, White vervain.
In examining some 130 lots of clover seeds as found in the market during
1897, thirty-two kinds of weed seeds were found. Sheep sorrel was most
common, next to this yellow or bitter dock and green foxtail. Only three
samples of clover seed was free from weeds, but possibly some weeds
might have been seen if larger quantities had been looked over.
During the year 1908, eleven years later, 47 kinds of weed seeds were
found in 122 lots of seed of red clover, a gain of nearly 50 per cent.
During three months from January 1, 1910, in examining 450 lots of seeds
of grasses, clovers and alfalfas, besides large numbers of common weeds
that we know, were 74 kinds not known to the writer. Of these 74 kinds,
probably some will never become weeds of any account. Some of these came
with alfalfa from Montana and some were importations from Europe and
elsewhere.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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