Agriculture for Beginners Part 8

Have you ever noticed that some weeds are killed by one particular method, but that this same method may entirely fail to kill other kinds of weeds? If we wish to free our fields of weeds with the greatest ease, we must know the nature of each kind of weed and then attack it in the way in which we can most readily destroy it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 56. PIGWEED]

The ordinary pigweed (Fig. 56) differs from many other weeds in that it lives for only one year. When winter comes, it must die. Each plant, however, bears a great number of seeds. If we can prevent the plant from bearing seed in its first year, there will not be many seeds to come up the next season. In fact, only those seeds that were too deeply buried in the soil to come up the previous spring will be left, and of these two-year-old seeds many will not germinate. During the next season some old seeds will produce plants, but the number will be very much diminished. If care be exercised to prevent the pigweed from seeding again, and the same watchfulness be continued for a few seasons, this weed will be almost entirely driven from our fields.

A plant like the pigweed, which lives only one year, is called an _annual_ and is one of the easiest weeds to destroy. Mustard, plantain, chess, dodder, c.o.c.kle, crab gra.s.s, and Jimson weed are a few of our most disagreeable annual weeds.

The best time to kill any weed is when it is very small; therefore the ground in early spring should be constantly stirred in order to kill the young weeds before they grow to be strong and hardy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 57. WILD CARROT]

The wild carrot differs from an annual in this way: it lives throughout one whole year without producing seeds. During its first year it acc.u.mulates a quant.i.ty of nourishment in the root, then rests in the winter. Throughout the following summer it uses this nourishment rapidly to produce its flowers and seeds. Then the plant dies. Plants that live through two seasons in this way are called _biennials_. Weeds of this kind may be destroyed by _cutting the roots below the leaves_ with a grubbing-hoe or spud. A spud may be described as a chisel on a long handle (see Fig. 58). If biennials are not cut low enough they will branch out anew and make many seeds. Among the most common biennials are the thistle, moth mullein, wild carrot, wild parsnip, and burdock.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 58. A SPUD]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 59. HOUND'S TONGUE]

A third group of weeds consists of those that live for more than two years. These weeds are usually most difficult to kill. They propagate by means of running rootstocks as well as by seeds. Plants that live more than two seasons are known as _perennials_ and include, for example, many gra.s.ses, dock, Canada thistle, poison ivy, pa.s.sion flower, horse nettle, etc. There are many methods of destroying perennial weeds. They may be dug entirely out and removed. Sometimes in small areas they may be killed by crude sulphuric acid or may be starved by covering them with boards or a straw stack or in some other convenient way. A method that is very effective is to smother the weeds by a dense growth of some other plant, for example, cowpeas or buckwheat. Cowpeas are to be preferred, since they also enrich the soil by the nitrogen that the root-tubercles gather.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 60. CANADA THISTLE]

Weeds do injury in numerous ways; they shade the crop, steal its nourishment, and waste its moisture. Perhaps their only service is to make lazy people till their crops.

=EXERCISE=

You should learn to know by name the twenty worst weeds of your vicinity and to recognize their seeds. If there are any weeds you are not able to recognize, send a sample of each to your state experiment station. Make a collection, properly labeled, of weeds and weed seeds for your school.

SECTION XXI. SEED PURITY AND VITALITY

Seeds produce plants. The difference between a large and a small yield may depend upon the kind of plants we raise, and the kind of plant in turn is dependent upon the seeds that we sow.

Two things are important in the selection of seeds--purity and vitality.

Seeds should be _pure_; that is, when sown they should produce no other plant than the one that we wish to raise. They should be able to grow.

The ability of a seed to grow is termed its _vitality_. Good seed should be nearly or quite pure and should possess high vitality. The vitality of seeds is expressed as a per cent; for example, if 97 seeds out of 100 germinate, or sprout, the vitality is said to be 97. The older the seed the less is its vitality, except in a few rare instances in which seeds cannot germinate under two or three years.

Cuc.u.mber seeds may show 90 per cent vitality when they are one year old, 75 per cent when two years old, and 70 per cent when three years old--the per cent of vitality diminis.h.i.+ng with increase of years. The average length of life of the seeds of cultivated plants is short: for example, the tomato lives four years; corn, two years; the onion, two years; the radish, five years. The cuc.u.mber seed may retain life after ten years; but the seeds of this plant too lose their vitality with an increase in years.

It is important when buying seeds to test them for purity and vitality.

Dealers who are not honest often sell old seeds, although they know that seeds decrease in value with age. Sometimes, however, to cloak dishonesty they mix some new seeds with the old, or bleach old and yellow seeds in order to make them resemble fresh ones.

It is important, therefore, that all seeds bought of dealers should be thoroughly examined and tested; for if they do not grow, we not only pay for that which is useless but we are also in great danger of producing so few plants in our fields that we shall not get full use of the land, and thus we may suffer a more serious loss than merely paying for a few dead seeds. It will therefore be both interesting and profitable to learn how to test the vitality of seeds.

To test vitality plant one hundred seeds in a pot of earth or in damp sand, or place them between moist pieces of flannel, and take care to keep them moist and warm. Count those that germinate and thus determine the percentage of vitality. Germinating between flannel is much quicker than planting in earth. Care should be used to keep mice away from germinating seeds. (See Fig. 61.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 61. A SEED-GERMINATOR Consisting of two soup plates, some sand, and a piece of cloth]

Sometimes the appearance of a package will show whether the seed has been kept in stock a long time. It is, however, much more difficult to find out whether the seeds are pure. You can of course easily distinguish seeds that differ much from those you wish to plant, but often certain weed seeds are so nearly like certain crop seeds as not to be easily recognized by the eye. Thus the dodder or "love vine," which so often ruins the clover crop, has seeds closely resembling clover seeds. The chess, or cheat, has seeds so nearly like oats that only a close observer can tell them apart. However, if you watch the seeds that you buy, and study the appearance of crop seeds, you may become expert in recognizing those that have no place in your planting.

One case is reported in which a seed-dealer intentionally allowed an impurity of 30 per cent to remain in the crop seeds, and this impurity was mainly of weed seeds. There were 450,000 of one kind and 288,000 of another in each pound of seed. Think of planting weeds at that rate!

Sometimes three fourths of the seeds you buy are weed seeds.

In purchasing seeds the only safe plan is to buy of dealers whose reputation can be relied upon.

It not seldom happens that seeds, like corn, are stored in open cribs or barns before the moisture is entirely dried out of the seeds. Such seeds are liable to be frozen during a severe winter, and of course if this happens they will not sprout the following spring. The only way to tell whether such seeds have been killed is to test samples of them for vitality. Testing is easy; replanting is costly and often results in a short crop.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 62. IMPURITIES IN SEEDS Tube 1 represents one pound of redtop gra.s.s as bought; Tube 2, amount of pure redtop gra.s.s seeds in Tube 1; Tube 3, amount of chaff and dirt in Tube 1; Tube 4, amount of weed seeds in Tube 1; Tube 5, amount of total waste in Tube 1; Tube 6, amount of pure germinable seeds in Tube 1]

=EXERCISE=

Examine seeds both for vitality and purity. Write for farmers'

bulletins on both these subjects. What would be the loss to a farmer who planted a ten-acre clover field with seeds that were 80 per cent bad? Can you recognize the seeds of the princ.i.p.al cultivated plants? Germinate some beet seeds. What per cent comes up? Can you explain? Collect for your school as many kinds of wild and cultivated seeds as you can.

CHAPTER IV

HOW TO RAISE A FRUIT TREE

Let each pupil grow an apple tree this year and attempt to make it the best in his neighborhood. In your attempt suppose you try the following plan. In the fall take the seed of an apple--a crab-apple is good--and keep it in a cool place during the winter. The simplest way to do this is to bury it in damp sand. In the spring plant it in a rich, loose soil.

Great care must be taken of the young shoot as soon as it appears above the ground. You want to make it grow as tall and as straight as possible during this first year of its life, hence you should give it rich soil and protect it from animals. Before the ground freezes in the fall take up the young tree with the soil that was around it and keep it all winter in a cool, damp place.

Now when spring comes it will not do to set out the carefully tended tree, for an apple tree from seed will not be a tree like its parent, but will tend to resemble a more distant ancestor. The distant ancestor that the young apple tree is most likely to take after is the wild apple, which is small, sour, and otherwise far inferior to the fruit we wish to grow. It makes little difference, therefore, what kind of apple seed we plant, since in any event we cannot be sure that the tree grown from it will bear fruit worth having unless we force it to do so.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 63. A YOUNG FRUIT-GROWER]

SECTION XXII. GRAFTING

By a process known as _grafting_ you can force your tree to produce whatever variety of apple you desire. Many people raise fruit trees directly from seed without grafting. Thus they often produce really worthless trees. By grafting they would make sure not only of having good trees rather than poor ones but also of having the particular kind of fruit that they wish. Hence you must now graft your tree.

First you must decide what variety of apple you want to grow on the tree. The Magnum Bonum is a great favorite as a fall apple. The Winesap is a good winter apple, while the Red Astrachan is a profitable early apple, especially in the lowland of the coast region. The Northern Spy, aesop, and Spitzenburg are also admirable kinds. Possibly some other apple that you know may suit your taste and needs better than any of these varieties.

If you have decided to raise an aesop or a Magnum Bonum or a Winesap, you must now cut a twig from the tree of your choice and graft it upon the little tree that you have raised. Choose a twig that is about the thickness of the young tree at the point where you wish to graft. Be careful to take the shoot from a vigorous, healthy part of the tree.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 64. TONGUE GRAFTING]

There are many ways in which you may join the chosen shoot or twig upon the young tree, but perhaps the best one for you to use is known as _tongue grafting_. This is ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 64. The upper part, _b_, which is the shoot or twig that you cut from the tree, is known as the _scion_; the lower part, _a_, which is the original tree, is called the _stock_.

Cut the scion and stock as shown in Fig. 64. Join the cut end of the scion to the cut end of the stock. When you join them, notice that under the bark of each there is a thin layer of soft, juicy tissue. This is called the _cambium_. To make a successful graft the cambium in the scion must exactly join the cambium in the stock. Be careful, then, to see that cambium meets cambium. You now see why grafting can be more successfully done if you select a scion and stock of nearly the same size.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 65. A COMPLETED GRAFT Showing scion and stock from which it was made]

After fitting the parts closely together, bind them with cotton yarn (see Fig. 65) that has been coated with grafting wax. This wax is made of equal parts of tallow, beeswax, and linseed oil. Smear the wax thoroughly over the whole joint, and make sure that the joint is completely air-tight.