A SERIOUS LETTUCE DISEASE. 
143 
Recommendations. 
The following recommendations for the treatment of beds infected 
with sclerotiniose are made. 
1. The bed should be very carefully inspected every day and every 
plant that shows indications of this disease should be pulled up and 
burned. 
2. The place in the bed from which sick plants are removed should 
be drenched with Bordeaux mixture or bluestone and water. 
If these directions are followed no sclerotia will mature. The num¬ 
ber of live sclerotia which will be present in the beds the following 
year will be very small and the amount of disease will be correspond¬ 
ingly reduced though it is not to he expected that the disease will be 
entirely eliminated. The next year the same treatment should he fol¬ 
lowed with just as much care as was given during the first year. 
Failure to be careful the second year will be fatal to success. It is 
probable that two years of this treatment will almost, if not quite, 
eradicate the disease. During later years, however, the beds should be 
watched closely and the same procedure followed. Beds which have 
been restored to a state of health and beds from which the disease has 
been partially eradicated should be protected from all possible sources 
of extraneous infection. It should be recognized that all refuse that 
comes from places where this disease exists is liable to bear the sclerotia 
and convey the disease. Therefore, all refuse from diseased lettuce 
beds, manure or fertilizer which may contain diseased refuse must be 
scrupulously avoided. There is also possibility of aerial infection. If 
infected beds exist nearby there appears to be no possibility of guard¬ 
ing against such infection and the method of treatment here advocated 
can not be expected to give its maximum of results if infected lettuce 
beds exist near the beds which are under treatment, since in such 
cases the danger of reinfection through the air will always be present. 
