Excerpt from Weeds of Farm Land

IT is impossible to begin to work land under any system of farming without immediately being confronted with the prob lem of weeds. Weeds are the inevitable corollaries of crops, and much of the science of farming consists in the skilful use of methods by which the weeds are kept in subjection. In the ordinary course of events all vacant land tends to clothe itself with vegetation, and soil that is artificially laid bare during farming operations offers a situation that is most favourable to the ingress of a native plant population. The farmer's crops are more or less alien to the areas on which they are grown, and consequently would have-but little chance against the natural colonists if it were not for the assistance rendered by husbandry methods. Weeds have thus a very great practical and economic importance, and a right know ledge of their habits and distribution is a valuable asset. Every farmer has a general knowledge of the worst weeds that occur on his land, and usually knows how to deal with them, but comparatively few have that special know ledge Oi the individual weeds which is necessary if the more up-to-date and less-known methods of prevention and eradication are to be successfully applied. The farmers of this country are in possession of a vast amount of weed lore, and much'information is scattered up and down agri cultural literature, but hitherto very little attempt has been made to bring together the facts and so to correlate them that they form a complete whole, instead of being merely disjointed scraps of knowledge of local interest and value only. The field of inquiry is so large and the difficulty of obtaining the necessary mass of information so great that it is impossible to present anything like a perfect picture of the weed problem, but the aim of the present book is to sketch a preliminary outline from the facts that are already available, in the hope that at some future date it may be possible.

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