The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, August 23, 1917, Page 8

Getting Rid of Sow Thistle Learn to Recognize it and Kill it by Intensive Warfare ERHAPS one of the reasons why sow thistle has got a grip on some sections of the wheat-growing Northwest, is the fact that many farmers do not recognize the plant. It has been found by observers in farm improve- ment that while every farmer has heard of sow thistle, and the word is on everyone's tongue as a familiar name, there are many who have no idea what it is. The first step in eradicating it, or even controlling it, is to recognize it. An enemy apprehended loses half its menace, One farmer in a Minnesotla county was so impressed with’ the beauty of some tall, thrifty yellow flowers growing in his field, that he carefully dug them ~up and trans- planted them to his yard, where they immediately took hold in their new environment, and without. much care or cultivation branched out, and pro- duced a mass of yellow bloom. This man had often heard of sow thistle, and he understood it was a dangerous enemy of the crops, but not until a neighbor who knew the weed by sight, took him to task for riot cutting down the sow thistle in his yard, did he know that he had transplanted one of the worst foes that Northwestern farmers have to contend with. SOW THISTLE RESEMBLES DANDELION Imagine a particularly thrifty look- ing dandelion, gigantically tall with a specially vicious barbed and curled leaf, and many branches, each with a bright yellow dandelion blossom at its tip. That is sow thistle. The bloom so closely resembles dandelion that a mixture half of one and half of the other in a boquet might easily be taken for all dandelions—or all sow thistles perhaps, if the person looking at them knew sow thistle at all. In one of the cuts on the page the difference and resemblance between sow thistle and dandelion is pointed out. It will be seen that the thistle has a more vigorous looking growth, and a much more curled leaf with its cut points ending in something almost like a spine. The flowers look enough alike 1o be from the same plant. But while the dandelion grows up on a rather delicate, hollow stem with a single flower standing high above the mass of the foliage, the sow thistle grows up like a cottonwood tree, branching in At the bottom, a dandelion blossom and leaf, above sow thistle leaf, bl_os‘som a_nd branching stalk. In the fork of the stalk may be seen the cottony mass in which Showing the masses of root of the sow thistle, and (on the right) five plant stalks rising from one root. Both illustrate the futility of merely pulling up sow thistle, the brittle broken ends indicating much left in the ground to send up new shoots. all directions, re-branching, and (in its seeding time) resembling a cotton- wood tree in miniature, with every ripened flower a mass of cotton in which is embedded a black looking seed that somewhat resembles lettuce seed. That is what makes it spread so fast and so far when once a small patch has been allowed to live. It scatters just like dandelion seed, one fiower sending its seeds for many rods even on a quiet day, and perhaps for miles on windy autumn days. That is why it is costly to allow a patch of it to form seed pods. In some sections of the country it has taken possession of tracts of land, although these are generally of only a few acres in extent, and in others where it has not become the principal crop, it has spread so that it is a big seeds are scattered far and wide by the wind. : part of the crop that is produced. There is so much of it in some parts of northern Minnesota that some farmers have cut it for hay, and others have put it into silos. That is perhaps better than destroying it entirely in a season of short crops, for it has some feeding value, and especially should be usable in feeding hogs; although its fodder is of poor quality, according to those who are familiar with it The fight against sow thistle has been organized in Clay county; Minne- sota, through the co-operation of many farmers and the cbunty agricultural advisor and they are planning to give it rough treatment. ERADICATION CALLS FOR ROUGH TREATMENT Rough treatment long continued, is the only remedy for sow thistle that is reliable. ‘“Keep the ground black’ is the way A. C. O’Banion, agricultural advisor for Clay county, puts it. The trouble is that in many places the treatment has not been severe enough. The method that is sure to give suc- cess is to plow the ground thoroughly, disk and harrow it, and work it up into friable condition, and then summer fal- low it through a season. Of course that keeps the land out of use, and it is expensive putting a man and team over a five or 10 acre field half a dozen times or more in a season, with no re- turn for that labor. But this method will subdue the sow thistle, and bring it within range of complete eradication. The Clay county farmers are plan- ning control first and eradication af- terward. When the plants have been reduced in number to a few isolated patches and occasional weeds in corners and along the margins of the cultivated fields, they can be pulled or dug up one at a time. It pays to do this intensive kind of work, for an hour put in digging up the isolated sow thistles before they ripen, is equal to a day harrowing them down when they are growing at large. One plant will reseed a field under favorable condi- tions and undo many days and many dollars of labor of the season before. SOME FARMERS PULL THEM BY HAND A number of farmers in different parts of the country, have gone out through their fields and pulled up the individual plants, finding few in their fields, but getting the result they de- sired, fields entirely clean. Others in the same neighborhoods are right now allowing them to go to seed, making new work next year for the more thrifty farmers, and increasing the pest in their own fields. Some spots where last year there were only two or three plants, are now yellow patches in the midst 'of the grain, and so rank have they grown that they have stunted -the grain in which they sprang up. These larger patches are now reseeding PAGE HIGHT s the fields that have never before known sow thistle. After summer fallowing, the next crop should of course be some culti- vated crop, potatoes-or corn, and for the sake of the new crop as well as for assurance that the thistle has been killed out, the farmer should be es- pecially vigilant in cultivating the new field. There is also partial'compensa- tion for the seemingly wasted summer, for the soil has so much better prepa- ration that it produces better than it ordinarily would, thus repaying to a certain degree the expense of the fal- low season. BETTER LATE THAN EARLY One of the few cases where a man had better be too late than too early is in the time of filling the silo. By all means avoid cutting silage corn too early. Silage from immature corn turns sour, is less palatable than when prop- erly made, and has lower feeding value, Best results are obtained by com- mencing to fill while the leaves of the upper part of the stalks are yet green, but not until the kernels are distinctly dented, in dent varieties, or consideras bly hardened in others. ‘When silage corn is so dry that the cut fodder does not feel moist as it is squeezed in the hand, water should be added at filling time. This can best be accomplished by turning a running hose into the blower. The amount of water to be used will depend on the rate of filling. Aim to make the cut fodder moist enough to pack down solidly. Farmers who are making their first use of silos this fall in order to save all they can of the short feed supply, will do well to give close attention to the matter of cutting the corn at the proper time. An error then may mean feed wasted instead of feed conserved. And feed conserved will help win the war. TO STOP SHATTERING In cutting sweet clover for seed it has been found that from one-fifth to- three-fourths of the seed shatters. One way to reduce this is to cut the seed crop early. Some recommend cutting Wwhen three-fourths of the seed pods have turned dark brown to black. The field will have a brownish cast at this time. In some cases a delay of a couple of weeks in cutting after this time has resulted in as much as 90 per cent of the seed shattering. Boxes can be at- tached to the binder so as to catch a good deal of the seed that shatters. Many prefer letting the bunches le as dropped by the binder or self rake reaper for a week and then hauling di- rect to threshing machine instead of shocking it. The seed shatters less on & cloudy day.—Agr. Ex. Dept, N. D, Agri. Collegs, ;