Weed
Weed names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Weed the name given to each of those plants which grow wild in cultivated grounds
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the name given to each of those plants which grow wild in cultivated grounds, and injure the crops; which they do both by choking them and by exhausting the soil. Those weeds which are annuals or biennials, as charlock, yellow rattle, and melilot, may gradually be got rid of by merely cultivating, for a succession of years, such plants as are to be cut before the seeds of the weeds are fully ripe. Perennial weeds, such as couch-grass, can only be removed from the ground by repeated and careful tilling; and for this purpose crops which require much hoeing are advantageously planted, and recourse is had to summer fallowing in fields, and frequent weeding in gardens. Thistles and other large weeds are frequently pulled in cornfields before the corn comes into ear, and to prevent their seeding they are cut in pastures. Sedges and rushes, which spring up in great abundance in damp grounds, disappear on thorough draining. Leafy crops which thickly cover the soil prevent the growth of many weeds by the exclusion of air and light. Weeds which have been rooted up form excellent compost for manure. Those which make their appearance in fallow grounds serve for green manuring when they are down plowed . Cultivated grasses growing in arable fields are weeds there. The seeds of weeds are carried normally by the wind, but may be conveyed by running streams.
Weed THURLOW, an American journalist
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
THURLOW, an American journalist; born in Cairo, N. Y., Nov. 15, 1797; was employed as a lad in several printing offices; served as a private in the War of 1812; and afterward edited newspapers in western New York, till in 1830 he founded the Albany "Evening Journal," an anti-Jackson, Whig, or Republican paper, which became the organ of the party, and which he controlled for 35 years. He was a leading party manager in State and National politics in 1824-1876, exercising almost supreme influence in nominations and appointments, while declining all offices for himself. He was influential in nominating Harrison in 1836 and 1840, Clay in 1844, Taylor in 1848, and Scott in 1852; with Seward and Greeley controlled New York; supported Lincoln and the Civil War; and went for him on a mission to Europe in 1861-1862. In 1867-1868 he was editor of the New York "Commercial Advertiser." He wrote "Letters from Europe and the West Indies" (1866); "Reminiscences" (in "Atlantic Monthly," 1870); ; "Autobiography" (1884). He died in New York City, Nov. 22, 1882.
Weed WALTER HARVEY, an American geologist
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
WALTER HARVEY, an American geologist; born in St. Louis, May 1, 1862; was graduated at Columbia School of Mines in 1883; and was then appointed geologist on the United States Geological Survey. In 1883-1889 he was on the geological survey of the Yellowstone Park. He discovered that colors in hot springs and deposits in geysers are caused by algæ. He also discovered Death Gulch in that park, where bears, elk, etc., are killed by inhaling carbon dioxide gas emitted from an extinct hot spring. In 1889-1898 he was engaged on a general geological exploration of Montana, and made important discoveries. In 1899 he brought out the first published theory of secondary enrichment of ore deposits. He was the author of "Formation of Hot Springs Deposits"; "Laramie and Livingston Formations"; "Glaciation of Yellowstone Park"; "Geology of Castle Mountain District"; "Geology of Bear Paw Mountains"; "Secondary Enrichment of Mineral Veins"; "Ore Deposits"; etc.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Every method Collier's lists in 1921 is mechanical or cultural: repeated tilling, summer fallowing, hoed crops, hand-pulling thistles, draining wet ground to kill sedges and rushes. Selective chemical weedkillers arrived a generation later with 2,4-D in the mid-1940s, followed by glyphosate (marketed as Roundup from 1974) and, from 1996, crops genetically engineered to survive it — so that spraying, not hoeing, became the ordinary answer. The consequence was one the old account could not foresee: hundreds of weed populations worldwide have now evolved resistance to herbicides, among them glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth in American fields, and no-till farming has revived interest in cover crops that smother weeds much as Collier's 'leafy crops which thickly cover the soil' did. Modern writers also treat weeds as an ecological and invasive-species question, not simply a competitor for the soil's exhausted fertility.
Written for this edition, 2026.