WEEDS OF THE NETTLE FAMILY. 61 



tures cows eat the stems and leaves, which impart their odor to the 

 milk and butter, and the flesh of animals eating them is also tainted 

 with the flavor. The bulblets are produced more often than the 

 seed and must be destroyed or prevented from forming if the garlic 

 is eradicated. Where the tops are not allowed to produce bulblets 

 the garlic develops numerous small secondary bulbs or "cloves" at 

 the base of the old underground bulb. In late autumn these send 

 up tufts of blue-green shoots which are apparently little injured 

 by the cold of winter. By spring the small bulbs become as large 

 as peas and soon develop a flowering stalk. In general both bulbs 

 and bulblets spread slowly unless scattered by plow or harrow or 

 some other device of man. 



The garlic was first introduced into Indiana near New Ross 

 with bulbs of the grape hyacinth brought from New York. In 

 the southwestern part of the State it was brought in by bulblets in 

 impure wheat and in recent years much complaint of it has been 

 made by the wheat growers of the "White and Wabash valley re- 

 gions. Remedies: (a) late fall plowing at such a depth as to leave 

 as many bulbs as possible close to the surface where they may be 

 exposed to alternate thawing and freezing, the surviving shoots to 

 be destroyed by early spring cultivation and the land then sowed 

 to oats or put in corn. This process repeated for two seasons will 

 destroy most of the garlic and the remaining plants can be pulled 

 or treated with strong carbolic acid, a dozen drops of which, ap- 

 plied by a machine oil can to a bunch of underground bulbs, will 

 kill them all. (6) Increased liming and fertilization and short ro- 

 tation of crops, crowding out with clover, (c) In pastures, salting 

 and sheep grazing, (d) In lawns, applications of carbolic acid. 



THE NETTLE FAMILY. URTICACE^E. 



Herbs with watery sap, simple leaves, small greenish flowers 

 and often armed with stinging hairs. Sepals 2-5, often united; 

 petals none; stamens as many as the sepals and opposite them; 

 ovary 1-celled, 1-seeded. when ripe forming an achene. 



But six species of the family are listed from the State, five of 

 which may be classed as weeds, though only two are in places com- 

 mon enough to be troublesome. Those which sting have the stems 

 and leaves provided with peculiar hairs which are hollow, very 

 sharp-pointed and have swollen bases around which a cluster of 

 cells form a cup-like gland. When these hairs strike and enter 

 the flesh their tips are broken off and the glandular cells contract 

 and inject through them a very- irritating acid which produces the 



