HSARINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE. 1638 
permission to anybody to manufacture it, provided he supplied it in 
the right way and at a not excessive cost. 
Pet pecs What do you do about the quack grass and Russian 
istle 
Mr. Spittman. We try to prevent them from going to seed. 
Mr. Bowrs. Where is the Johnson grass distributed ? 
Mr. Spituman. There isa strip in Alabama, in the prairie region 
of Alabama and Mississippi, and in that great rich prairie soil of Texas, 
and that is where the Johnson grass is most at home, and there is not 
much of anything else at home when it gets there. 
Mr. Bowie. What was done about the boll weevil in this field that 
you said was in the boll-weevil country, where you fought Johnson 
grass and boll weevil both? 
Mr. Sprrtman. There was nothing done in that country about the 
boll weevil then, and it never occurred to me to do anything with it. 
In fact. the method of handling the boll weevil only came to me after 
I had this other work entirely inaugurated. We are going to treat a 
good many acres this year. 
Mr: Scorr. What is the use in continuing experiments which 
appear, by these illustrations, to be so entirely successful already 4 
Mr. Sprutman. That was done on one-third of an acre, on one man’s 
farm, in one part of the United States. If we should publish a bulle- 
tin on that merely, that would not settle it. Although it ought to 
settle it, it would not. I think I can get people to go down and see 
that farm, and get the railroad company to carry people there to see 
it. It will not cost a great deal to have an acre, or 2 or 5 acres, 
ale in ten or twelve different places in the South where this test 
is had. 
Mr. Scorr. Why does not the man who owns this place, after see- 
ing your method of treatment, treat his whole farm in that way ? 
Myr. Sprutman. This is the beginning of the experiment. When we 
made the experiment I had five plants, and treated them, each one. 
One of the methods used completely exterminated the pest, although 
at a high cost. We grew a crop of cowpeas on the land, and that 
crop was not bothered at all with Johnson grass. I want to repeat 
that process largely, so as to gain the confidence of the farmers. 
Mr. Scorr. It still seems to me—I do not believe you quite answered 
or quite caught the question I had in my mind—it does seem to me 
that the farmer would use his eyes when that demonstration was made, 
and he has more interest in continuing the experiment himself than 
anybody else could have, and he should be expected to treat his whole 
farm as you treated this one-third of an acre; and then his neighbors 
would see it, and the neighbors of those would see it, and use the 
same method on their farms, and in that way the knowledge would 
spread with great rapidity, and thus obviate the further necessity of 
work by the Department. 
Mr. Spruitman. It would seem that that should be the case, but 
things of that kind will not spread as fast as the boll weevil. This 
man, for instance, may think in his mind that Johnson grass can not 
be killed, and no amount of demonstration will convince him that 
it can. 
Mr. Gattoway. I would like to add a word on that point. My 
experience in the Department has oftentimes been very discourag- 
ing for that very reason. We had an experimental vineyard some 
