TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL FRUIT-GROWERS' CONVENTION. 



141 



ever, as my name is called, I will say a few words. The vine-hopper, 

 or leaf-hopper, or whatever the proper name may be, is a serious 

 menace to the vineyardists of Fresno County, and it is a question in my 

 mind if they don't destroy, completely, some of the crops in years to 

 come. I talked with my friend Mr. Hutchins about the vine-hopper 

 and the experiments I made last year, also concerning other experi- 

 ments made by some of the professors at the University, and if I should 

 seem to criticise our State University I am drawn into it by my friend 

 Mr. Hutchins. I said to Mr. Hutchins that Professor Woodworth and 

 several others came up and had done the best they could to suggest 

 some plan to rid ourselves of the vine-hopper; and I said that, so far 

 as the experience of myself and my neighbors went, the plans were all 

 failures. Last season the vine-hopper attacked a portion of my vine- 

 yard, and so seriously during the month of June that I got very much 

 alarmed, for the reason that two years before they had destroyed a 

 $5,000 crop for me, and naturally enough I became excited when they 

 attacked me again last spring. I went and purchased twenty tons of 

 growing alfalfa, and had it mown down and raked up and hauled into 

 the vineyard. The alfalfa was not quite in bloom. I went to town and 

 employed a lot of men to put the twenty tons on thirty-nine acres of 

 vineyard — perhaps forty acres. As a result of placing that alfalfa over 

 the vines, I gathered from my forty acres fifty-nine and three-fourths 

 tons of grapes, and I figure that this saved me in the neighborhood of 

 $1,500. 



QUESTION. Do the vine-hoppers stay with you all summer? 

 Mr. GORDON. Before the summer was over I lost some grapes from 

 them. 



QUESTION. Did the vine-hopper desert the vineyard where the 

 alfalfa was spread? 



Mr. GORDON. I think they did; some of them were there all sum- 

 mer, but they were not near so thick as where there was no alfalfa. 

 You should not put the alfalfa on so thick that the sun and air cannot 

 get to the vines. For twenty thousand vines I would use twenty tons 

 of alfalfa. A laborer can cover about seven hundred vines per day. 



QUESTION. What happened to the vines afterward? 



Mr. GORDON. They came up growing and putting on new leaves. 

 Two days before I picked my crop I had two men go ahead and lift the 

 alfalfa from the vines. 



QUESTION. What did you do with the alfalfa? 



Mr. GORDON. I plowed it in every alternate row and let it stay 

 there. 



Prof. WOODWORTH. I should think that was very dangerous, as 

 the nitrogen in that alfalfa in proportion to the other plant-foods might 

 prove disastrous next year? 



Mr. GORDON. I will take my chances and plow it in. 



