122. SPURREY.

Press, Volume L, Issue 149814, 30 May 1914, Page 16

122. SPURREY.

Some time ago I received a specimen of a small plant and a letter, all nicely dono up in a tin tobacco box by A.D:'M., with a request for "the proper name of this little weed, which is rapidly spreading in several of my fields?' I regret that ho should have had to "remind mo that ho still awaited an answer. As a fact I recognised tho weed at once, but it was rather withered, and -to nut away the possibility of a mistake I took the boxful to Henry for confirmation. I found him working a horsehoe of sorts among his turnips, and evidently not in the best of tomper: so I .spoke him fairly. Opening the box, I said : "Henry, I have here an interesting little olant. If you bapTien to have seen it before, pill you kindfv narao it." For a moment 1 judged that my dear friend Henry was going to hit mc. and stood hack a step ready to truard, but presently to my great relief, his oaroxysm passed. Ho gazed at mo reflectively, and I must havo looked quite young and presumably innocent, for anon ho deigned a rooly. "My dear man, Ido know your interesting little plant," and I havo spent about a couple of pounds an acre in trying to get the ndjective thinfj out of. these turnips. If you don't know snurrey when you sco it, you ought to." Alas there are so many things one '•'ought to." At the'momeut I admitted rashly that I wanted to make sure, and Henry so far forgot himself as to advance a clod in my direction, but har»nily with unskilful aim.

: " In this wa? I mado certain that the plant in .the tobacco box was called srurrey—sometimes "yarr"—and I am .afraid A.D:M. will find it spreading yet more swiftly v as time Goes,on. So far as I know, in this country spurrey is an irrepressible nuisance on turnip land, ancfis neglected entirely by sheep and usually by cattle. However, a weed in one country can be a useful plant in apother; or a people reputed industrious and' frugal as the Belgians hardly would give over fifty thousand acres annually to its cultivation. Of course, where tho plant is cultivated it appears before the stock in a more acceptable. form, and in Belgium "and America both sheep and cattle eat it greedily and thrive well upon it, either green or as bay. There the ground is first scarified, then the seed is broadcast at the rate of; about twenty pounds to the acre, after which there is a light harrowing, and the cron is pastured when the spurrey is about four or five weeks old.