Using Tear Gas To Control Weeds On Golf Greens?

Using Tear Grass To Control Weeds On Golf Greens?

In this photo from 1938, Agriculture Department researchers are testing the effectiveness of tear gas in keeping weeds out of golf greens.

The experiment is being conducted in conjunction with a USGA grass specialist with the unlikely name of A. E. Rabbit.

I don’t know how anyone could think this was a good idea.

The photo’s original caption is below:

Government experts test power of gas to keep weeds out of golf greens. Washington, D.C., Aug. 4. Attention golfers!! Your putting is bound to improve and your cussing cut down if the tests now being conducted by grass experts of the Department of Agriculture on the use of tear gas to keep weeds out of golf greens are successful. A.E. Rabbit, (left) grass specialist of the United States Golf Association with whom the Department of Agriculture is cooperating in making the tests, is pictured as he pours the gas into the soil while Stanley Graeff, Dept. of Agriculture, rakes it over. The gas treatment was developed by Dr. John Monteith of the Department of Agriculture