As it is rather inconspicuous when young, but develops rapidly and to such enormous proportions late in the season, cultivated, and in fact all suspected areas need to be gone over in late August or early September to see that no isolated individuals have been overlooked. Vigilance, and the free use of the plow and harrow, the hoe and the scythe, will soon rid a farm of it, but unless there is the completest co-operation of all the residents of a community the ground will soon be re-seeded again. It is just as essential to its extermination that my neighbor shall destroy them on his place as that I destroy them on mine. This will not happen till we have a thoroughly aroused public sentiment, backed by a just and enforceable law. To secure this sentiment it should only be necessary to make thoroughly known the character of the weed and the dangers that it threatens, and to furnish means for its recognition. On these points it ought to be made impossible for any one to remain in ignorance. As Mr. L. H. Dewey has said*, "make the pupils in the schools familiar with it, teach them to destroy it, as they would a rattlesnake, wherever they see it." Let the watchword be: "Kill it." When it is known that in some counties in our neighboring States this pest is in such complete possession that many farmers are abandoning their fields in despair, and that farm valuations on account of it are greatly diminished, it ought to spur us all on to secure its extermination in Wyoming while it may yet be within our control. *Farmers' Bull. No. 10, U. S. Dept. Agriculture. PLATE IV.*-SQUIRREL-TAIL GRASS (Hordeum jubatum L.) *This excellent plate, as well as plates V, XI, XII and XIII, we are able to present through the kindnes of Prof. Chas. S. Crandall, Botanist of the Colorado Station. The weed conditions of the two States are so simi lar that we were glad to avail ourselves of the excellent work that had been done for Bulletin 23, "Colorad Weeds," in which these piates first appeared. SQUIRREL-TAIL GRASS, Fox-Tail, Wild Barley (Hordeum jubatum L.) In a State where hay forms so staple and important a crop as in Wyoming, the worst weed of our meadaws' must receive attention. In the opinion of the writer there is no one weed that so much concerns hay producers and hay users as this. Not because it is ever likely to take complete possession of our lands, as the Russian Thistle threatens to do, but because, so long as it is endured in our meadows, much hay must be quite unfit for use. How any one who knows its worthless character and the injur ies that it inflicts upon stock can for a moment think of using hay in which it is found in any appreciable quantity, is incomprehensible. Selfish interests, as well as humane considerations, forbid its use. This annual grass is, as soon as it heads, a pest and only a pest. Its light seeds, armed with the long barbed bristles, are carried everywhere by the wind, in the waters of our irrigating ditches and on our streams, and even by animals in their hair and wool. With such easy dissemination the plant readily spreads to all fields where suitable conditions are offered. Unfortunately suitable conditions are often unwittingly. created by the ranchman himself. By over-irrigation, particularly during the spring months, the native or cultivated grasses are wholly or partly killed out and the vacated soil is promptly occupied by this hardy indigene. Being an annual it is not so very difficult to bring it under control. Infested meadows may be cut before the Squirrel-Tail heads, and if they are cut a second time during the season this will practically exterminate it, if fence corners and turning rows are not maturing plants for the re-seeding of the ground. Where it is in complete possession of a meadow the safest and best means is to break up the ground and plant to a cultivated crop for a year or two. This is always effective and probably the shortest road to a well-sodded meadow again, for the considerable presence of this weed in any field indicates that the better grasses have run out. In this State there are many valuable meadows of native grasses which are being ruined by injudicious methods of irrigation. Constant flooding drowns out the better grasses, which are then replaced by seeds and rushes, or, worse yet, by Squirrel-Tail Grass. It is to be hoped that more judicious methods may prevail, and that the remarkably nutritious native grasses may still be saved in many meadows. No description of this is needed; it is known to all, or if not, may easily be recognized from the accompanying plate. More complete information as to the structure, the mode of dissemination, the injuries resulting from this weed and the best methods of exterminating it, can be obtained from a bulletin by the writer*, No. 19 of this Station, and from one by Prof. L. H. Pammelt, of the Iowa Station. COCKLE, Cow Herb (Saponaria vaccaria L.) Cockle is known to all the farmers of this State by name at least. Many have learned to know it at sight by reason of much bitter experience. This is at present the *Squirrel-Tail Grass Fox-Tail), One of the Stock Pests of Wyoming. |