34 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Mr. HiTTiNGER. I don't just understand what you mean. 

 In the greenhouse or out of doors? 



Mr. Howard. In regard to the greenhouse work, because you 

 have got rid of so much of the lettuce rot. 



Mr. HiTTiNGER. That is done by keeping the ground 

 cleaned up; keeping the old stuff out of the soil there; not 

 putting it into the manure. I will state what we do to the old 

 refuse that is left from om* outdoor crops. I generally clean it 

 up and form it into a pile and make a compost heap out of it; 

 take some coal ashes and then mix it in and put manure with 

 it, and put it on some of our lighter soils, and it seems to work 

 all right there. I notice when you leave it in the soil there 

 you are apt to have more trouble. In the greenhouses we 

 generally keep that stuff all cleaned up. Now, we have never 

 sterilized in our greenhouses, and by doing that we avoid 

 sterilizing any houses. I would like to ask one thing: if you 

 don't find that yellow^ comes after you manure a piece of ground 

 in the fall, then why do you plant spinach where it has never 

 been manured? 



Professor Johnson. We have been able to control that best 

 on our soil where we have plowed under a crop of cow peas. 

 We find that trouble has not been caused by the application of 

 manure ; in fact, we have been able to control it largely by the 

 application of manure, that is, we have added to the vigor of 

 the plant so much that it has been able to withstand those 

 troubles. 



Mr. Arnold. I would like to start a little bit of discussion 

 here, — in fact, to get the opinion of some of you other people 

 about that question which has been brought up about the 

 refuse crop. We have had a little discussion at home between 

 myself and my brothers on the subject. On a trip recently to 

 the market gardeners we stopped at Long Island on the farm 

 of Mr. VanSuclin there, and I noticed he spoke of being very 

 careful to clean up the refuse of all crops, — carrot tops, beet 

 tops, anything of that kind, — to clean them off the land. It 

 has always been our practice at home to plow in that kind of 

 stuff. What do you do with celery trimmings? We take ours out 

 and plow them into the land; we believed there must be some 

 value in them. As far as the question of disease is concerned. 



