Western Carolina Democrat and French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1913-1915, 1914-09-10
FARM AUTHORITIES TELL HOW
TO GET RID OF WILD ONIONS.

s 4
The wild onion, or garlic, which
causes an<annual money loss to farm
ers OF millions of dollars a year can
re eradicated by careful methods of
cultivation, according to Farmers
Bulletin No. 610, of the Department Of
Agriculture, shortly to be issued. The
WILD onion is the worst weed pest in
large part of the territory in the At
lantic coast region from Massachu-
sets to Georgia, and as far inland as
Missouri. 1t not only gives milk .
6isagreeable odor and flavor. but when
the onion bulblets get in wheat they
give the flour made from it a pro-
nounced garlicky odor and taste.
The measures recommended for the
eradication of the wild onion. or gar
lie pest, are based on the growing
habits of this plant. 1t ripens in
June or July, when it has stem IL
to IL feet tall, on the top of which
are found clusters of the aerial bulb
let's, incorrectly called seeds. The
plant seldom produces true seeds. It
multiplies by forming to 6 new bulb
let's, which start to grow after the
leaves and stem die. These bulblets
consist generally of large bulb with
thin white skin and smaller ones
with a hard, brown shell. The soft
shell bulb terminates In the summer
or early fall, and the hard shell bulbs
do not start growth until considera-
bly, later date. A few start in the late
fall, but most of them remain dor
mant until the following spring, or
even later. Inasmuch as the plants
from the soft shelled bulbs advance
far enough to produce new bulbs be-
fore all the hard shelled bulbs have
terminated, there is an overlapping
OF generations, which rs the secret of
the remarkable persistence of this
weed.
To kill the wild onion, the work
must be started in the fall to destroy
the plants from the soft shelled bulbs
before they produce new bulbs. The
best time is when the new plants are
IL to Is inches high, or during Octo-
Der and November in the South and
November and December in the north
At this stage the land should be plow-
ed fairly deep, turning under all the
onion tops. The tops should beacom-
pletely buried by the plowing, and for
this reason, plow with jointer at
tached to the beam will often be
great help. Disking the land previous
to plowing will also aid In burying the
tops. The following spring the field
should be planted IN q ctFtfyated CROP
corn in check rows being best. An
other shallow blowing may be neces-
sary in the spring, but ordinarily a
disking or two previous to planting
will suffice. In cultivating the corn,
the effort should be to kill the onion
plants that spring up and the easiest
way to do this is to cut off the tops.
Cultivators of the sweep type are the
best. On many of the modern cultiva-
tors, sweeps 9 to 18 inches wide may
he quickly attached in. place of the
shovels Some soils, of course, are
too stony or otherwise unsuitable for
the use of sweeps.
From the time the farmer is able
to getSon the land in the spring until
the corn Is laid by, he should direct
his efforts towards preventing the
onion from making top growth, with
the idea Of killing the plants thai
come up from the hard shell bulbs. If
this is we'll done, most of the onions
will disappear by the end of summer.
Some Of the hard shell bulbs, how
ever, may delay termination for a
year or two, so that by fall few
plants may again be in evidence. The
fsrmer, therefore, should be prepared
TO follow the same plan of deep plow-
ling late in the fall, succeeded by a
| carefully cultivated crop the next
spring. In two years this treatment
| is almost sure, death to all the wild
onions in the land, and the work can
be carried out with but little extra
labor and expense. The aerial bulbs
germinate in the early fall, but the
plants are weak and readily destroyed
by fall plowing. Many farmers have
tried the method outlined here and
have found it to be entirely satisfac-
! tory.