A SERIOUS LETTUCE DISEASE (SCLEROTINIOSE) AND 
A METHOD OF CONTROL* 
By F. L. Stevens and J. G. HalM 
PART I. 
Lettuce, formerly a garden plant grown for home consumption, has 
of recent years become an important article of farm production, rep¬ 
resenting, says Mr. L. F. Kinney, 1 “a higher form of agriculture 
than any known to previous generations.” Its production has so in¬ 
creased that in 1897 we find the statement that the “sales of this 
vegetable from a single farm during the last fifteen years have 
amounted to over a half million dollars.” 
This crop has been grown commercially in -the United States for 
more than fifty years, and was the first crop to he grown extensively 
under glass, by market gardeners. 1 
As early as 1872, it was estimated that no less than 50,000 sashes 
were used mainly for this purpose within ten miles of Boston. 2 
About 800 acres , are now devoted to seed production in California 
alone, making some 400,000 pounds of seed.J 
Lettuce was first grown largely on a commercial scale in Connecticut 
and Rhode Island. It was. estimated that in 1893 fully nine-tenthts 
of the winter head lettuce sold in New York and other eastern markets 
was either grown in Rhode Island or in the vicinity of Boston. 3 
During the last decade there has been a large increase, in the ship¬ 
ment from the South to the metropolitan markets, particularly from 
North Carolina and South Carolina where lettuce is grown under 
cloth, and from Florida where it is grown largely in the open. In 
Florida it was first cultivated under canvas about 1894, Mr. F. D. 
Warner, of Gainesville, and*Mr. Denby being among the pioneers in 
this industry in that State, as was also Mr. J. E. Pace, of Sanford, 
who introduced the crop in that place in 1896. 
Lettuce is now grown to a large extent in South Carolina, particu¬ 
larly at Conway where it was first grown about the year 1900. Charles¬ 
ton and James Island are other prominent lettuce centers in South 
Carolina. 
The Lettuce Industry in North Carolina. 
Wilmington was the pioneer lettuce growing community of North 
Carolina, and the first lettuce raised under cloth for shipment in this 
State seems to have been grown by D. W. Trask, of Wilmington, about 
1892, three years before other commercial lettuce was produced in 
Wilmington. Mr. Trask, who raised lettuce in a small way for the 
*The matter here published has in part been presented at various scientific meetings, American Phyto- 
pathological Society, Boston, 1909; the N. C. Academy of Science, Greensboro, May, 1903: the N. C. 
Academy of Science, Raleigh, May, 1911, and in part published in Bulletin No. 217, N. C. Agr. Exp. Sta. 
fMr. G. W. Wilson has taken the place of Mr. Hall during the last year of the work. 
{Letter from Mr. W. W. Gilbert, Bureau Plant Industry, who give3 his information as coming from 
W. W. Tracy, Sr., of the Horticultural Office. 
