Excerpt from Tests of Chemical Means for the Control of Weeds: Report of Progress

These conditions constitute a very serious menace to the agriculture of the state and were fully discussed at a meeting of the county horti cultural commissioners of California held at I Stanford University, July 26, 1915. The use of chemicals was frequently mentioned as a possible solution of the weed problem, butthe fact was brought out that very little information is available concerning their usefulness under California conditions. Following this meeting, Mr. William Wood, Los Angeles County Horticultural Commissioner, took up with the director of the agricultural experiment station at Berkeley the mat ter of an investigation of -methods of weed control by means of chemicals. It was suggested that a judicious use of chemicals might solve the problem of the control of those weeds which too often survive and increase in spite of expensive mechanical control measures. The suggested investigation was undertaken by the station in the fall of 1915, and the writer was assigned-to the Work.

A review of the literature discloses the fact that the use of chemicals has simplified to some extent the solution of the problem of weed control on both agricultural and non-agricultural land in localities other than In one case at least, the use of chemicals for the destruction of weeds has become a common practice.9 Some of the experiments have demonstrated the usefulness of chemicals for the destruction of weeds on a large scale. Methods which have proved efficient elsewhere may also prove to be efficient here. The soil and climatic conditions of California, however, are so different from those of regions where the chemical method has proved satisfactory, that it is by no means certain that this will be the case. A study of the literature gave encouragement that weed pests might be controlled under local conditions if the conditions were carefully studied and the treatment made accordingly.

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