220 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



Througii provisions contained in the Plant Inspection Act 

 of 1917, as amended in 1919, the common barberry and the 

 purple-leafed barberry were declared a nuisance by the 

 state Director of Agriculture, after a public hearing held 

 on August 9th. 



The plan of the campaign during the past year has been 

 different from that of the first year. The slogan '^ Bar- 

 berry or Bread" has been dropped, and no attempt has 

 been made to cause this campaign to apj)ear as anything 

 other than one of the many campaigns for agricultural 

 improvement through plant disease control. Use has not 

 been made of high school students or other persons who 

 were not emjiloyed by the United States Department of 

 Agriculture in the immediate tasks of scouting for, and 

 removing located, barberries. The number of men em- 

 ployed has varied from one in March and December to 

 twelve in July. The plan of the campaign has been to 

 assign a squad of men to a county and to work thoroughlj^ 

 every town in that county. The start was made in the 

 northern part of the state and made good progress 

 southward reaching Pike county in the west, Sangamon, 

 Christian, and Macon counties in the center and Craw- 

 ford and Lawrence counties in the Wabash Valley. The 

 countryside is as yet very largely untouched, although a 

 great deal of accurate data has been collected. Single 

 towns in other portions of the state have also been 

 worked. 



From March 1st until December 31st, the amount ac- 

 complished has been entirely satisfactory both to the 

 State Department of Agriculture and to the United 

 States Department of Agriculture. The tangible pro- 

 gress of the year may be summed up in the following: 

 The number of towns visited was 632; the approximate 

 population reached was 1,169,200 ; barberries were found 

 on 2,977 properties and eradicated from 2,921 ; the num- 

 ber of bushes found was 45,370 and the number eradi- 

 cated 39,879. About 350 towns, distributed among about 

 60 counties, are known to be free from Berheris vulgaris 

 and the variety purpurea. 



