cockleburrs what's the use!

[oldandnew]

Well I hacked my way through a cockleburr hell today. I swear they had to cultivate them to get a stand like this! Plants about 3.5 foot tall and absolutelt covered. The long haired dogs even shaved, picked them up in their pads, and bellies. In all our clothes,the big hard nasty kind that puncture your fingers. Caused me to wonder, what good they are? Generally, I am in favor of weeds, ragweed, hard on allergy but heaven for quail, iron weeds, pheasant heaven, but I can't say I have ever seen a good use by any man or beast for cockleburr. I't would make me feel better to know that my suffering had purpose! Anybody know anything good about cockleburr?
At least Jimsonweed eats nuclear waste!

 

[Kal]

The seeds in the pods were eaten raw or cooked by Native Americans. Among the Zuni of the Southwest, the seeds were ground with squash and corn in the fraternal chamber of the Cactus Fraternity. The mixture was then applied externally to help extract cactus needles or splinters or to heal puncture wounds from nails and such.

And then there's this little tid-bit...

One day in 1948, an amateur Swiss mountaineer and naturalist, George de Mestral, went on a nature walk with his dog through a field. He and his dog returned home covered with burs.

Curious, Mestral went to his microscope and inspected one of the many burs stuck to his pants. He saw numerous small hooks that enabled the seed-bearing bur to cling so tightly to the tiny loops in the fabric of his pants.

George de Mestral then decided to invent a two-sided fastener, one side with stiff hooks like the burs and the other side with soft loops like the fabric of my pants. He called his invention Velcro® a combination of the words velour and crochet.

Mestral's idea was met with resistance and even laughter, but the inventor persevered, and together with a weaver at a textile plant in France, Mestral perfected his "hook and loop fastener." By trial and error he realized that nylon when sewn under infrared light, formed tough hooks for the bur side of the fastener. This design was finally patented in 1955.

The inventor formed Velcro Industries to manufacture his invention and soon started selling over 60 million yards of the product each year. Today Velcro Industries is a multi-million dollar company.

 

[Shadow]

wasn't the brown cockleburrs you see in the milo fields- but this 1/2 mile had millions of the marble sized thorns-bushes grew three feet tall- had to have boots on the Britt's- and darn tough pants to even step foot into- that and lots of pulling the little devils out of my pants- the Britt's ears, legs, sides, and the roosters- most of them had the burrs when they dropped- usually an hour work when we were done

but- pheasants were always there- coyotes and cats pretty much left the field alone-

worth it- you bet- I'd take the Britt's ou

t in pairs every other day all season-

 

[doubletap]

Seems to be the only value i've ever noticed... keeping predators away so those fields are usually chock full of birds.

 

[Shadow]

Seems to be the only value i've ever noticed... keeping predators away so those fields are usually chock full of birds.

ahhhhhh- and to set and watch other hunters head into the field- course the most fun was watching the dogs quickly slow down- guys yelling-

had a few stop in- "do you hunt that"
I'd smile- yep- pheasant are there

by the way- I sure do know what those cockle burr fields are like- mine would get so bad they'd bleed at the arm pits-
I can remember coming home- wife would say- "why do you hunt in those areas"

 

[Jazz9]

Ever wonder where velcro came from, yep it's true. Pheasants like the stuff because nothing else does, nothing like safety first. Good luck keeping a birdy dog out of it, so I just avoid those areas as much as I can, Jazz9.