112 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



$1,200, and 35 property owners in Lenox, Lee and Stockbridge 

 subscribed $2,434. The State Department of Conservation also 

 expended $500 to complete the removal of Ribes from the 

 lands comprising the Otter River State Forest in Winchendon. 

 In all, a total of $10,750.78 was expended by the State and its 

 co-operators and the Federal Department. Examinations were 

 made on 32,933 acres of land, upon which 631,516 Ribes 

 (626,885 wild and 4,631 cultivated) were found and destroyed 

 at a per acre cost of 33 cents. This cost represents a marked 

 reduction over the cost of the work in any previous season. 



The usual practice employed in the removal of Ribes is to 

 gridiron the area to be examined, as follows: — 



A crew of from three to seven men line up side by side, from 

 6 to 12 feet apart, and starting on a road advance into a wooded 

 area in line formation, an additional man, acting in the capacity 

 of a foreman, following behind the crew to direct and check up 

 the work. In this manner the ground is very thoroughly ex- 

 amined for possible Ribes plants, and when any are found they 

 are pulled up, using care to get the entire root system, and 

 then the bushes are hung up in the crotch of a small tree or in 

 the crevice of a stone wall, the air soon drying out the roots, 

 and thus killing the plant. This method is known as the strip- 

 formation method. 



In open areas, such as fields, pastures, etc., the crew is 

 usually divided into smaller units, two men pairing in the ex- 

 amination of stone walls, rock piles, gardens and other favor- 

 able habitats. Such a crew unit has been termed a stone-wall 

 crew. 



In addition to these intensive methods of examination, there 

 is still another method which is known as preliminary or ad- 

 vance scouting. In the case of this system, one or two men, 

 preferably two, enter the area from which it is desired to elim- 

 inate Ribes, and by a process of scouting determine the location 

 of the Ribes within the area. If only a few scattered bushes are 

 found, the scouts pull these, but when larger patches are found, 

 the location of such a plot is marked and the regular crew di- 

 rected to eradicate the bushes. In this way the work of the 

 crew is localized, and the intervening areas are scouted out by 

 the two men, thus greatly reducing the total cost of the work. 



