346 Report of the Mycologist of the 



days until frost. The Bordeaux mixture can be satisfactorily 

 applied with a knapsack sprayer, but it may, perhaps, be less ex- 

 pensive to use a barrel spray-pump mounted on a one-horse cart 

 which is hauled through the field along blank spaces felt for the 

 purpose. 



INTRODUCTION. 



In southeastern New York, particularly in Westchester county 

 and on Long Island, the crop of late cucumbers in 1896 was 

 unusually small. Farmers estimated that cucumbers grown for 

 pickles produced only about one-fourth of a crop; and statistics 

 furnished by the proprietors of various pickle factories on Long 

 Island show that this estimate is very nearly correct. One firm 

 of pickle manufacturers having six salting houses in different 

 parts of Long Island, contracted with farmers to purchase the 

 entire crop of cucumbers on 817 acres at a stipulated price per 

 thousand. From these 817 acres the firm received 15,759,200 

 cucumbers, which gives an average of 19,288 per acre. In West- 

 chester county the yield was still smaller. A firm having four 

 factories in that county reports that receipts would place the 

 average yield per acre at 13,000. 



A fair average crop is considered to be 75,000 cucumbers per 

 acre, and this is the number used by picklemen in computing the 

 acreage capacity of their factories. Until within a few years 

 125,000 per acre was not an unusual yield; but during the past 

 five or six years the yield has decreased rapidly, reaching so low 

 a point in 1895 and 1896 that the crop ceased to be a profitable 

 one. In spite of the poor crop of 1895, farmers continued to 

 plant heavily in 1896, being loth to give up a crop so admirably 

 adapted to their soil and climate. Moreover they believed that 

 the season of 1895 was exceptional, and that with the return of 

 normal weather conditions the cucumber disease would disap- 

 pear and the crop continue to be as profitable as it had been in 

 the past. But when the disease reappeared in 1896, more viru- 

 lent than ever, they became discouraged and many of them de- 

 cided that they must quit growing cucumbers. Some of the 

 picklemen, too, feared that they would be obliged to close their 

 factories. 



