Newspapers / The Echo (Pisgah Forest, … / April 1, 1950, edition 1 / Page 30
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NOW YOU CAN SPRAY AWAY CRABGRASS The best news for the home owner since DDT hit flies and 2,4-D hit dandelions is a safe, new chemical that really kills crabgrass, available this spring. . , ^ Use of PC, or potassium cyanite, means that now for the first time, you can rid your lawn of weeds by spraying, according to the April issue of Better Homes & Gardens magazine. PC is not a brand new discovery. For several years it has been used to keep crabgrass out of commercial onion patches. Last year scientists who specialized in grasses made large-scale tests with it on lawns, and were enthusiastic over the results. j It will be sold this year under several trade names. It comes in crystal form, in sealed metal cans. You dissolve the crystals in clear water, in amounts specified on the label, and spray it oti the lawn. About 2 pounds of PC crystals mixed with water will cover all the lawn on a lot 50 by 150 feet. PC is not to be confused with potassium cyanide, the deadly poison. PC is no more poison ous than common table salt, and can be used where pets and children play. It breaks down into potash and nitrogen, both excellent lawn foods. You spray PC on twice—once in early June, once in mid-August. It can be mixed with 2,4-D so that you can kill dandelions and other broad- leaved weeds in the same spraying. It also kills chickweed, which is resistant to 2,4-D. Experiments show there is little chance of kill ing bluegrass with PC. A dose 50 times as strong as needed to kill crabgrass turned bluegrass brown for two weeks but didn t injure it permanently. Crabgrass, if you’ve been lucky enough not to meet up with it, is that rank, tough, hard-to-mow grass that sprouts late each spring and spreads and chokes through the good grasses until frost, killing them as it goes. Its light green seedlings make your lawn look nice and thick at first. In a few weeks, however, it is reaching out like an octopus, takes on a purplish cast and shoots up brownish seed heads that makes your lawn look as unkempt as a man with a three-day beard. Until now, crabgrass has been almost invul nerable. Burning it off with a blowtorch has been recommended, by authorities, as has pas turing geese on it. Digging and raking with a special rake have been tried, without much suc cess. Chemical solutions containing phenyl Mer curic acetate have been used, but are expensive and poisonous. Here are some tips and cautions to remember about PC: The new chemical doesn’t work well on dry ground. Apply PC when the ground is green and lush—otherwise, wait for a good rain or give your lawn a good watering before you spray. You won’t be freed from crabgrass after one season because there will be seeds from last year and years before lying in the ground waiting to germinate. Dr. Carl A. Schenck Dr. Carl A. Schenck, founder of the first fores try school in America at Biltmore, sent us the above photograph. It was taken at a forestry meeting in the French Zone of Germany. He is shown in the center with the cane. Dr. Schenck says, "I cannot say that the men and the ladies in the crowd surrounding me are particularly good looking. When it comes to good looks of the ladies you have to go to the U. S. A. of the men you have to go to England; and of the future you have to go to Pisgah Forest, North Carolina.” 28
The Echo (Pisgah Forest, N.C.)
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April 1, 1950, edition 1
30
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