The Eradication of Wild Onion. 405 



Simultaneously experiments were tried in the aforesaid field 

 with those forms of treatment which seemed, from the Pot- 

 culture trials, to give prospects of success. The field, however, 

 was not at our free disposal, and the experiments could not be 

 effectively controlled and carried out consecutively, so that it 

 will not be necessai*y to refer further to this work. In the 

 Pot-culture experiments the agencies that seemed to be most 

 promising were (a) carbolic acid, (h) sulphocyanide of ammon- 

 ium, (c) gas lime, (c/) mechanical operations. It could not, how- 

 ever, be said that any of these methods effectually destroyed the 

 weed ; undoubtedly a check was given to its growth, but the 

 hard " off-sets " from the parent bulb were found to resist the 

 action of even strong " chemicals " like sulphuric acid, 

 carbolic acid, &c. During the experiments many observations 

 were made of the habit of growth of the wild onion, and these 

 came in very usefully subsequently when the field trials now 

 to be specially dealt with were undertaken. Among other 

 points it was noticed that the bulli worked its way up to the 

 surface of the soil as the summer proceeded, and l)y July, if 

 the ground was not too hard, it could be pulled up quite well 

 by the hand without detaching the then forming " off -sets." 



Early in 1902, a Member of the Society, Mr. Charles Reed, 

 of Chelsing, Ware, Herts., reading in the Journal an account of 

 the work done at Woburn, offered the Society part of a field on 

 his farm where wild onion was very prevalent. Arrangements 

 were entered into, and from 1902 until the present time 

 experiments have been conducted there, Mr. H. M. Freear of 

 the Woburn Pot-culture Station having throughout personally 

 attended to the various applications given. The field in 

 question is one 24 acres in extent, lying somewhat on a slope ; 

 the soil of the lower 10 acres of the field is distinctly lighter 

 than at the top end, and here wild onion does not thrive to an 

 extent to be really troublesome. But the upper and centre 

 parts of the field are on heavy clay and here wild onion is such 

 a pest as to cause the field to be practically unculturable. On 

 the adjoining farm is an area of 160 acres which also is quite 

 useless because of the presence of the weed. Accordingly the 

 selected site was one admirably adapted for such a practical 

 trial as that devised ; Mr, Reed has shown the greatest interest 

 in the work and has throughout given every assistance and 

 done most readily whatever was asked of him. For this the 

 best thanks of the Society are due to Mr. Reed. At the outset 

 an area of about 2 acres Avas taken in hand in the worst part of 

 the field ; 15 plots were marked out and a scheme of 

 experiment devised. It is not proposed to deal with these in 

 detail, but only to state generally the results arrived at, and 

 then to treat of the method which was eventually found 



