The Manning Times

TO KILL WILD ONIONS

Wild onion or garlic flavor is decidedly objectionable when incorporated in dairy products such as milk, cream, and butter. Dairymen whose cows have fed on this pungent and odorous plant have suffered from a loss of trade because their patrons do not like the garlic-flavored milk. Furthermore the United States Department of Agriculture, as a result of many thorough investigations and tests has satisfied itself that there is no cure for milk or cream or butter that has become tainted with the garlic flavor. The only alternative is in preventing the cows from feeding on the plant. That, of course, is next to impossible when cows run on pasture that is infested with garlic or wild onions. But there is still hope of eliminating the flavor from the ultimate product by ridding the fields and pastures of the wild onion. To kill the wild onion, says the department, the work must be started in the fall. Deep plowing will kill the plant, but it must be done in the fall before new bulbs have been formed for the spring growth. In the following spring the field should be planted to a crop, such as corn, which can be cultivated. In pastures the onion often can be killed out by pasturing with sheep for a few years. If not too numerous the plants may be treated with coal tar creosote oil and killed in that way.