damage the fleeces of sheep. The rapid increase in the number and variety of weeds should cause alarm.

DISADVANTAGES OF WEEDS.

1. They rob cultivated plants of nutriment.

2. They injure crops by crowding and shading.

3. They retard the work of harvesting grain by increasing the draft and by extra wear of machinery. (Bindweed, thistles, red root.)

4. They retard the drying of grain and hay.

5. They increase the labor of threshing, and make cleaning of seed difficult.

6. They damage the quality of flour, sometimes making it nearly worthless. (Allium vineale L.)

7. Most of them are of little value as food for domestic animals.

8. Some weeds injure stock by means of barbed awns. (Squirrel tail grass, wild oats, porcupine grass.)

9. Some of them injure wool and disfigure the tails of cattle, the manes and tails of horses. (Burdock, cocklebur, houndstongue.)

10. A few make "Hair balls" in the stomachs of horses. (Rabbit-foot clover, crimson clover.)

11. Some injure the quality of dairy products. (Leeks, wild onions.)

12. Penny cress, and probably others, when eaten by animals, injure the taste of meat.

13. Poison hemlock, spotted cowbane and Jamestown weed are very poisonous.

14. Many weeds interfere with a rotation of crops.

15. All weeds damage the appearance of a farm and render it less valuable. (Quack-grass, Canada thistle, plantains.)

SOME SMALL BENEFITS.

1. They are of some use in the world to induce more frequent and more thorough cultivation, which benefits crops.

2. The new arrival of a weed of first rank stimulates watchfulness. (Russian thistle.)

3. In occupying the soil after a crop has been removed they prevent the loss of fertility by shading the ground.

4. Weeds plowed under add some humus and fertility to the soil, though in a very much less degree than clover or cow peas.

5. Some of them furnish food for birds in winter.

WHAT ENABLES A PLANT TO BECOME A WEED.

1. Sometimes by producing an enormous number of weeds. (A large plant of purslane, 1,250,000 seeds; a patch of daisy fleabane, 3,000 to a square inch.)

2. In other cases by the great vitality of their seeds. Shepherd's purse, mustard, purslane, pigeon-grass, pigweeds, pepper-grass, May weed, evening primrose, smart weed, narrow-leaved dock, two chick-weeds survive when buried in the soil thirty years at least, as I have found by actual test.

3. In each prickly fruit of a cocklebur there are two seeds, only one of which grows the first year, the other surviving to grow the second year.

4. Some are very succulent, and ripen seeds even when pulled. (Purslane.)

5. Often by ripening and scattering seeds before the cultivated crop is mature. (Red root, fleabane.)

6. Sometimes by ripening seeds at the time of harvesting a crop, when all are harvested together. (Chess, cockle.)

7. Some seeds are difficult to separate from seeds of the crop cultivated. (Sorrel, mustard, narrow-leaved plantain in seeds of red clover and alfalfa.)

8. Some are very small and escape notice. (Mullein, fleabane.)

9. Some plants go to seed long before suspected, as no showy flowers announce the time of bloom. (Pigweeds.)

10. In a few cases the plants break loose from the soil when mature and become tumble-weeds. (Some pigweeds, Russian thistle.)

11. Some seeds and seed-like fruits are furnished each with a balloon, or a sail, or with grappling hooks. (Dandelion, sticktights, burdock.)

12. Some remain with the dead plant long into winter, and when torn off by the wind or by birds, drift for long distances on the snow, often from one farm to another. (Pigweeds.)

13. Some have creeping root-stocks or tubers. (Quack-grass, nut-grass.)

14. Some defend themselves with forks and bayonets. (Thistles.)

15. Most of them are disagreeable in taste or odor, so that domestic animals leave them to occupy the ground and multiply. (Jamestown weed, stink grass, milk weed.)

16. Plants with stout roots are sometimes passed over by the harrow or cultivator.

HOW ARE WEEDS INTRODUCED AND HOW ARE THEY SPREAD?

1. By live stock, carried in the hair or fleece or carried by the feet; in some instances passing alive with the excrement.

2. By unground feed-stuff purchased.

3. By adhering to the insides of sacks where they were placed with grain.

4. In barnyard manure drawn from town.

5. In the packing of trees, crockery, baled hay and straw.

6. By wagons, sleighs, threshing machines.

7. Sometimes by plows, cultivators and harrows.

8. By railway trains passing through or near a farm.

9. By ballast of boats at wharves.

10. By wool-waste at factories.

11. By birds, squirrels, and mice.

12. By water of brooks, rivers, by washing rains and by irrigating ditches.

13. By the wind aided by little wings or down, or by drifting on the snow.

14. By dropping seeds to the ground from extending branches and repeating the process.

15. By creeping root-stocks, as June grass, quack-grass and toad-flax.

16. By piercing potatoes, carrots, etc., quack-grass, June grass, Bermuda grass are sometimes carried to other fields or farms where the tubers and roots are planted.

17. A farmer buys clover seeds or grass seeds that were grown in some state that never before grew seeds that went onto his farm and thus he may get some new weeds. Seeds of alfalfa or some other crop bring new kinds of weeds, especially those of dodder. As every kind of weed goes onto a farm to stay there it follows that as a country becomes older the greater the number of kinds of weeds. As a rule each farm is annually getting more sorts of weeds, and as each farmer is cultivating weeds, they are more freely distributed in every field and along every roadside and by exchanging they are carried to neighboring and distant farms.

A great many farmers buy and sow whatever the merchant offers them under the name mentioned. For example, the college has a sample of something called clover seed, sold by a dealer in this state. It contains about 40 per cent of narrow-leaved plantain.

WHERE CERTAIN WEEDS ARE TROUBLESOME.

To begin with, years and years ago no new farm in the wilderness of Michigan contained more than twenty to thirty-five kinds of weeds, as there were not more than thirty-five sorts in the entire state, while at present there are not far from 250 kinds. A large majority of weeds hail from older countries, more especially from Europe.

There are a few weeds, like Canada thistle and quack-grass, that may infest any crop of farm or garden, but in most cases, whether to call a weed very bad depends on the nature of the crop grown, the size of the weed-seeds and their time of ripening.

Some weeds have a very wide distribution, thriving all around the world in temperate climates, while others are more limited in range; some thrive only in dry, thin, sandy soil and others in wet soils. To some extent the presence of a few weed-seeds is almost as objectionable when once on the farm, as though there were more, because these few may thrive and seed freely.

In many respects the lists of weeds for New Jersey is different from the list in Michigan, while half the weeds of Nevada or Oregon are not known in our state.

Chess, cockle, red root and rye are liable to be troublesome in fields of winter wheat, because the seeds are more or less difficult to separate from this grain and for the reason that they require a portion of two years to