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destroyed and damage to future crops will be greatly lessened. 
Such cultivation will not only assist in reducing the number of beetles 
maturing, but it will also aerate the ground and place it in a thrifty 
condition, producing strong healthy plants that will be able better 
to withstand insect attacks. 
This point should not be passed without mention of the fact that 
stable and barnyard or corral manure, which, in the Salt River Valley, 
is ordinarily dumped in waste places, on ditch banks, or absolutely 
destroyed, as it were, should be utilized in building up the soil and 
making it still more productive than it is at the present time. Manure 
is ordinarily not used in the warm southwestern country because it 
is claimed that it causes burning of the plants and contributes to the 
dispersion of weed seeds. If manure is thoroughly rotted and 
properly applied it will not burn the plants, and if rotation of crops 
is practiced, there will be a minimum of complaint in regard to the 
dissemination of weed seeds. 
Mr. E. W. Hudson, who has been in charge of the Bureau of Plant 
Industry Experimental Farm at Sacaton, Ariz., and who is well 
acquainted with farming conditions in the Southwest, believes that 
all manure should be utilized, and if it is to be plowed under it should 
be applied in the fall, turned under, and given a chance to decay 
during the cool part of the year. If used at other times of the year, 
he believes that it should be applied by the aid of a manure spreader 
as a light top-dressing. The writer is thoroughly in accord with 
this latter method, for in addition to putting the nourishment just 
where it is needed by spreading the manure over the ground where 
it soon dries, the breeding of flies is also avoided. If all manure 
and refuse were handled in this manner, there would be a consider- 
able reduction in the fly population of these regions. 
If land well treated with stable manure is afterwards planted to 
corn, the plants will be enabled to make a good start and continue in 
a thrifty condition in spite of flea-beetle attack. 
ERADICATION OF JOHNSON GRASS AND OTHER TROUBLESOME GRASSES. 
Since it has been shown that this flea-beetle lives quite largely 
upon Johnson grass {Sorghum Jialepense) and salt grass (Distichlis 
spicata), it is obvious that the fewer of these grasses found grow- 
ing in alfalfa fields or cultivated fields of any kind and also along 
roadsides and ditch banks, the fewer the number of beetles to attack 
the cultivated crops. While Johnson grass may be a difficult and 
troublesome grass to control, yet there is no excuse for allowing it 
to become an almost inaccessible thicket, 15 to 20 feet wide, along 
roadsides, fence rows, and ditch banks, as is sometimes found to be 
the case in Arizona. Each farmer should consider it a part of his 
duty to the community in which he lives to mow such places two 
