DON'T PLANT WHEAT (UNPUBLISHED FROM NEW GOOSE -- LORINE NIEDECKER)

The government men said Don't plant wheat,
we've got too much, just keep out weeds.

Our crop comes up thru change of season
to be stored for what good reason

way off and here we need it -- Eat
who can, who can't -- Don't grow wheat

or corn but quack-grass-bread!
Such things they plant around my head.

Quackgrass

Description:

Aliases: couch grass, dog grass, twitch grass, wheat grass, cough grass, cutch, quitch grass, quake grass, scutch grass, chandler's grass, durfa grass, durfee grass, Dutch grass, Fin's grass, Scotch quelch, devil's grass, witch grass.

Agropyron repens (Beauv.), Triticum repens (Linn.)

Family: N.O. Graminaceae

Distribution: everywhere

Charges: Pernicious and troublesome behaviour, garden terrorism

Prosecution:


"One of the worst pests with which the farmer has to contend, taking possession of cultivated ground and crowding out valuable crops." -- "The Herb Hunters Guide" by A.F. Sievers, 1930.


Defense:

"Though commonly regarded in this country (UK) as a worthless and troublesome weed, its roots are, however, considered on the Continent to be wholesome food for cattle and horses. In Italy, especially, they are carefully gathered by the peasants and sold in the markets. The roots have a sweet taste, somewhat resembling liquorice, and Withering relates that, dried and ground into meal, bread has been made with them in time of scarcity." -- "A Modern Herbal" by Mrs. M. Grieve, 1931.


"Although a gardener be of another opinion, yet a physician holds half an acre of them to be worth five acres of carrots twice told over." -- "Culpeper -- The Complete Herbal" by Nicholas Culpeper, 1653.