82 LIL1ACEAE (LILY FAMILY} 



Means of control 



Hand-pulling just at flowering time is a good method if the plants 

 are not too numerous to make it impracticable. The ground must 

 -be very soft and care must be taken to leave no "cloves" behind 

 that will render the work of no account. Quicker and more 

 effective is the use of crude carbolic acid applied with a common 

 machine oil-can ; a few drops on a plant or a small sprinkle on a 

 tuft will kill them all. The acid should be very little, if at all, di- 

 luted. This treatment may be given before the grass has started 

 or even before the ground has thawed in the spring, when the green 

 Garlic tufts show plainest. If used during the grazing season, 

 stock must be kept from the fields until rain has washed the poison 

 into the soil. This method seems expensive in time and labor, but 

 it is not more so than the application of Paris green to potato 

 plants ; it is certainly the best way of removing the pest from lawns, 

 and was the one used to clean out a very abundant stand of it 

 which at one time impaired the beauty of the eight acres of green- 

 sward surrounding the White House at Washington. 



In cultivated ground the task of extermination can seldom be 

 completed in one season. When undertaking to destroy Field 

 Garlic with the plow, the work should be done as late in the fall 

 as practicable, the depth of the furrow being so gauged as to bring 

 as many as possible of the bulbs to the surface or near it, where they 

 will alternately freeze and thaw. Some plants will survive, of 

 course, to be fought in the same way with early spring cultivation, 

 followed by a hoed crop, well tilled until midsummer ; this in turn 

 to be followed by a crop of clover. Liming and fertilizing the soil 

 helps better plants to crowd out the weed. 



In infested pastures, sheep may be induced to keep the Garlic 

 nibbled down by salting a number of tufts from time to time so as to 

 overcome their natural dislike to its taste. If deprived of leaf 

 growth for an entire season, the underground bulbs wither and rot. 

 In some instances success has been attained in mellow soil by loosen- 

 ing it with the plow and turning in hogs to root out and eat the 

 bulbs. It should be remembered that the meat of any animal 

 which has eaten Garlic takes the flavor and is unmarketable. When 

 wanted for that purpose, they must be withdrawn from such graz- 

 ing and fed for several days on a different diet. 



