196 AGRICULTURAL APPROPRLA.TION BILL, 1924. 



very lowest estimate, what it will cost at the present time. I tremble 

 to think of what is going to happ(*n to the small-grain crops of 

 Michigan, to say nothing of the northwest areas, if the barberry con- 

 tinues to increase in our dune lands and in our waste lands, which 

 occupy so large a part of the northern part of the Southern Peninsula 

 of Michigan. 



Mr. Buchanan. Does it increase rapidly? 



Doctor Coons. Around a ])ush perhaps 100 seedlings or more can 

 be seen readily, which represent the increase of a single year, and if 

 you can see 100 seedlings in an area the size of this table, who can 

 estimate the number of seedlings that have been carried here, there, 

 and everywhere by birds, and which escape detection? So I should 

 say its progress is extremely rapid. 



Mr. Buchanan. It will reproduce from the seed ? 



Doctor Coons. Yes, sir. 



^Ir. Buchanan. How large are the seeds ? 



Doctor Coons. They are about the size of a kernel of wheat an<l 

 these arc eaten by birds in the winterlime. 



Mr. Buch.\nan. Will stock cat them ( 



Doctor Stakman. There was one rather interesting thing iu 

 Pennsylvania. They found that cows browsed on the berries in 

 pastures, and, as a matter of fact, they counted about -15 seedlings 

 from a single bush. 



Doctor Coons. I would like to comment as a technical man t)n the 

 method of handling this barberry eradication program. I think 

 Congress has proceeded in exactly the right fashion in giving strong, 

 central support to this movement, heading up the entire program, 

 and enlisting the cooperation of all of the States in this grain-growing 

 area, and proceeding in a vigorous, orderly fashion to cover the ter- 

 ritory by a definite farm-to-farm survey and not lieing satisfied witli 

 merely telling somebody else to go and do it. With the amount of 

 mone}^ that was spent in the first years the progress was, I should 

 say, slower than the actual increase of the barberry. The amount 

 spent then was something like $150,000. 



With the amount spent this last year in the entire barberry area, 

 $350,000, the progress has been muck more gratifying, because where 

 before something like five counties in Michigan were covered per 

 year by a farm to farm survey, under the apportionment given to 

 our State, something like 15 counties were covered in this hist year 

 thoroughly and effectively. While we can not make any such 

 favorable report as the gentlemen who have prececkHl me as tt) 

 the end being in siglit in a year or two, at any rate we can say that 

 the job of covering tlie State of Michigan is going to l)e acconii)Hshed 

 witiiin a reasonal)k' time and is not going to be (haigged out o\er a 

 20-year pei'iocL My opinion, as a j^erson (hiding with phmt patho- 

 logical subjects, is that Congress sliouKI not tliink at all of reducing 

 tills appr()|)iiation, but should rather think of putting in more money, 

 putting in as mucli money as can be liandlcd economically, so as to 

 control this pest iininediately. 



My last statement will be a very i)rii'f one. and it will be that the 

 common concensus of opinion of plant pathologists is that this move 

 of eradicating the barberry is tlie logical and first step toward the 

 control of tlie black stem rust. 



Mr. Bucha.nan. Is there any second step? 



