THISTLE DESTRUCTION.
The discovery of a remedy against nettles (many times referred to in the Spectator and many more times asked for) has been followed by the finding of a cure for thistles. This is not chemical, but mechanical and is not available in narrow gardens ; but the principle may perhaps be followed out anywhere. It has been found that thistles vanish if a piece of ground is hayed for two years or more in succession. The reason—it is suggested—is this, that the lower leaves, being deprived of light and space, wither off naturally, so that when the thistle is felled with the rest no green leaf at all survives. Since you may destroy any plant—even nettles and bindweed—by continually depriving the plants of their chlorophyll—the strain on the roots of the thistle, vigorous though they are, is too much. The increase of thistles, that has come with agricultural depression, can perhaps be cured only by such a process. In some experiments not a thistle has survived the second year's haying ; and long ago farmers have noticed that successive grain crops have cleared a field even though the thistles have seeded. As to thistle seed, it is almost the most mysterious of all seeds—very difficult to germinate except where it is least wanted. Solomon forgot to add to his standard wonders : the way of a seed in the ground.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
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