36 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



large quantities ■ — 100 or 200 pound lots — at 9 to 12 cents a 

 pound. A pound is a little less than a pint. 



Mr. Howard. I would like to ask Professor Johnson what 

 he requires of these farmers in cleanliness in regard to diseased 

 crops. When they have diseased crops, does he allow them to 

 plow the latter into the ground, or does he recommend them 

 to clean up the land? 



Mr. Johnson. Most of the farmers follow the practice of 

 cleaning up. Most of them, if they have any disease appear in 

 the lettuce, will remove not only the head of lettuce but the 

 soil around the head. This is especially true when the lettuce 

 has lettuce droop. The head will be removed and burned in 

 the furnace, or taken away where it will not get back into the 

 soil. The question came just now about leaving the lettuce on 

 the ground. There is another problem comes in which is 

 rather important to the southern grower, that is, in growing 

 our spinach we will harvest it in November to March or April. 

 Now, if we harvest a crop of spinach in March and expect to 

 follow that crop of spinach with snap beans we are going to 

 have trouble on our hands right off and our trouble comes in a 

 way you would hardly expect. There is a little black fly that 

 deposits eggs on the refuse spinach that is left on the ground. 

 If we turn them into the ground we will have the finest crop of 

 root maggots you ever saw. Those flies deposit their eggs on 

 the leaf, and the decaying leaf goes into the ground. It prac- 

 tically insures your not getting the beans. If we turn that 

 spinach under and leave it under for thirty to forty-five days 

 before we plant the beans we are not troubled. Further, we 

 have found in our work that if we plow under a diseased crop 

 of cucumbers we are almost sure, — if we follow immediately 

 with cucumbers, or within twelve months, — we are almost 

 sure to have the disease worse in our cucumbers than if we 

 had not plowed under the disease at the time. So that I 

 would emphasize that. The question of sanitation is really 

 a very important question in the control of our market-garden 

 diseases. 



Mr. Brown. That question is one that has inteiested me 

 a good deal. I was present in a market gardener's meeting 

 recently, and one man said to me that if he had his way he 



