82 LILIACEAE (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wanted for that purpose, they must be withdrawn from such graz- 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. 
