STATEMENT OF E. H. GRUBB, OF CARBONDALE, COLO.

Mr. GRUBB. Mr. Chairman, I desire to say that I was not expecting to make a statement to the committee this morning, but I will say that we are having a great deal of trouble in the irrigated West with regard to varieties of potatoes and the cultural methods to retain what fields we now have. We have no way of determining the variety and sorts of potatoes adapted to the environments and the soils and latitude and conditions of the irrigated Northwest. An interest in Pittsburgh, that is doing great work in Idaho, has generously given 40 acres of land and water, and the use of it as long as the department wants to use it, for determining and trying out some 30,000 varieties of seedlings that are four years old now, and that are available for that work, and the Secretary of Agriculture tells me it will be necessary to get some added revenue for carrying out and for installing the plant and for the development of the work in cultural and research work in the way of diseases of potatoes. That territory will cover or conform to more conditions in the Northwest than any other section I know of. Senator CHAMBERLAIN. Is there a blight now that is attacking all the varieties of potatoes that you have?

Mr. GRUBB. Ŵell, we have always had those blights and diseases, but the last three years, from the lack of knowledge of soil and cultural methods, and unfavorable weather conditions, we have practically lost our potatoes in the irrigated West.

Senator CHAMBERLAIN. And the conditions are growing worse, are they?

Mr. GRUBB. Yes, sir; continually growing worse, and unless we have some special pathologist and bacteriologist in cultural methods to determine how to handle these problems, we are in danger of losing our industry.

Senator PAGE. Are you a professor in your school there?

Mr. GRUBB. No, sir; I am a farmer. I think it might be of some information to you to state that Secretary Wilson appointed me to go abroad and study the potato methods of Europe from a cultural standpoint and also a practical one.

The CHAIRMAN. Were you in Scotland?

Mr. GRUBB. Yes, sir; I was in practically all the fields of Europe. The CHAIRMAN. They are sending over from Scotland quantities of potatoes to New England and to other parts of the country.

Mr. GRUBB. It is too bad that there are such unfavorable conditions in America that we have to import our potatoes by reason of a lack of knowledge.

Senator CHAMBERLAIN. You have methods devised to cure these troubles that you have?

Mr. GRUBB. Absolutely; I kill them on my farm. I have no trouble. It is a matter of culture and green manures and seed selection, and all those matters.

Senator CHAMBERLAIN. Are you advocating the suggestion of Senator Borah in his amendment?

Mr. GRUBB. Yes, sir.

Senator CHAMBERLAIN. You think it would be all right to establish it at the point he selects in Idaho?

Mr. GRUBB. I selected the point, or recommended it.

Senator CHAMBERLAIN. Do the conditions there conform to conditions that exist where these blights are most prevalent?

Mr. GRUBB. The conditions will cover more uniformly all the conditions of the Northwest than any other one point. Secretary Wilson wanted to locate this on my farm—I have known him a great many years and he knows my work-but the conditions are so local and the soil conditions are so varied in Colorado that it would not do the work as under the favorable conditions of southern Idaho; that is, the altitude is nearer central there, from the high to the low, and the altitude is more uniform for the whole Northwest. From one station you can just as well do the work as to have the experimental station of each State duplicating the work.

Mr. Grubb was thereupon excused, and the committee, at 1 o'clock p. m., took a recess until 2.30 o'clock p. m.

AFTER RECESS.

The committee reassembled at the conclusion of the recess.

STATEMENT OF HON. LE ROY PERCY, A SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI.

THE BOLL WEEVIL.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Percy, your amendment on page 21, line 22, strikes out the word "thirty-two" and inserts the word "eightytwo."

Senator PERCY. Mr. Chairman, there are two amendments that I have been very solicitous to have adopted by the committee. One is, as you have suggested, on page 21, line 22.

Senator PAGE. That provides for an increase of $50,000 to meet the ravages of the boll weevil?

Senator PERCY. It is the boll-weevil appropriation; yes. Now, in regard to that, I have consulted with the department about the increase. With that increase they could put a man in every county, with the assistance now given by the boards of supervisors of the various counties, in the way of making a fight against the weevil during this year. The weevil has covered practically the State of Mississippi, or about three-fourths of it, and anything that can be done either to educate the people or to destroy the weevil inures directly to just as great a degree not only to the benefit of that section, where the weevil now is at the worst, but for the benefit of those sections toward which the weevil is progressing.

As an illustration, take the figures furnished by the department as to the magnitude of the disaster to the cotton section. Here are 11 counties in southern Mississippi where the weevil has been injurious for four years, last year being the fourth year, and the effect on the number of bales of cotton produced in those counties is shown by this table, which I desire to submit to the committee.

The tables referred to are as follows:

Number of bales ginned (exclusive of linters), by counties, State of Mississippi, years

Total number of bales ginned (exclusive of linters), by parishes, State of Louisiana, years

Senator PERCY. You will notice in the aggregate that those 11 counties produced in 1908, 268,491 bales of cotton; in 1909, 150,335 bales; in 1910, 91,132; in 1911, 54,691 bales, a difference between 1908 and 1911 of 213,000 bales of cotton. Estimating that cotton at 12 cents, which has been about the average price during that period, it represents a loss in those 11 counties-which are not the great cotton-growing counties of the State-of $12,828,000, which can be almost directly and positively attributed to the ravages of the weevil, as shown by the steady decrease from year to year as the weevil attained its maximum degree of injuriousness. It has now appeared over the great cotton-growing part of the State, where the damage in dollars and cents will probably exceed by three times this amount. In other words, the same number of counties in the central portion of Mississippi would represent a loss through the same cause, if the ravages are on the same scale, of $40,000,000 annually.

Senator CHAMBERLAIN. În addition to the 11 counties that you speak of?

Senator PERCY. I say if you take only the 11 counties. That is in our State alone, and it is now reaching the Alabama line and approaching, of course, the Carolinas, covering the whole cotton-producing

area.

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Senator CHAMBERLAIN. Do the conditions there conform to conditions that exist where these blights are most prevalent?

Mr. GRUBB. The conditions will cover more uniformly all the conditions of the Northwest than any other one point. Secretary Wilson wanted to locate this on my farm-I have known him a great many years and he knows my work-but the conditions are so local and the soil conditions are so varied in Colorado that it would not do the work as under the favorable conditions of southern Idaho; that is, the altitude is nearer central there, from the high to the low, and the altitude is more uniform for the whole Northwest. From one station you can just as well do the work as to have the experimental station of each State duplicating the work.

Mr. Grubb was thereupon excused, and the committee, at 1 o'clock p. m., took a recess until 2.30 o'clock p. m.

AFTER RECESS.

The committee reassembled at the conclusion of the recess.

STATEMENT OF HON. LE ROY PERCY, A SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI.

THE BOLL WEEVIL.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Percy, your amendment on page 21, line 22, strikes out the word "thirty-two" and inserts the word "eightytwo."

Senator PERCY. Mr. Chairman, there are two amendments that I have been very solicitous to have adopted by the committee. One is, as you have suggested, on page 21, line 22.

Senator PAGE. That provides for an increase of $50,000 to meet the ravages of the boll weevil?

Senator PERCY. It is the boll-weevil appropriation; yes. Now, in regard to that, I have consulted with the department about the increase. With that increase they could put a man in every county, with the assistance now given by the boards of supervisors of the various counties, in the way of making a fight against the weevil during this year. The weevil has covered practically the State of Mississippi, or about three-fourths of it, and anything that can be done either to educate the people or to destroy the weevil inures directly to just as great a degree not only to the benefit of that section, where the weevil now is at the worst, but for the benefit of those sections toward which the weevil is progressing.

As an illustration, take the figures furnished by the department to the magnitude of the disaster to the cotton section. Her

counties in southern Mississippi where the weevil has bee

for four years, last year being the fourth year, and the number of bales of cotton produced in those counties is table, which I desire to submit to the committee.