Hi, Phil - maybe Hammond got it from what I posted in this thread (click) in 2002:

to keep prices up so they can make a decent living, farmers often sell only first-quality produce to wholesalers. Lower-quality produce is sold locally or dumped. At one time, California farmers put creosote on dumped oranges to make them inedible and unsaleable - one can argue the morality of that, but it was a way for the growers to assure themselves an income from their labors. Nowadays, I think that most dumped produce is used for animal feed - or plowed under for fertilizer.

But Doctor John posted that information earlier than I did, up above in this thread. The Wikipedia article on "Crop Destruction" says that Steinbeck described the intentional destruction of crops in Grapes of Wrath, but I didn't have any luck finding the Steinbeck quote. Can anybody find out what Grapes of Wrath had to say about crop destruction?

Now, I don't remember where I got the information. Maybe it was Doctor John, maybe not. I see that I was asking your same question in 2001, and then posting the answer in 2002. Maybe I asked an old farmer in Fresno, or the Coalinga newspaper writer who wrote all the articles about the crash. It has long been common practice to pour somethng poison on waste food to render it inedible. Restaurants have been widely criticized for poisoning the waste food in their Dumpsters, and that practice has been outlawed in places.

Creosote is nasty stuff, and it used to be cheap and readily available on farms for use as a wood preservative - especially for fence posts.

Hey, Phil - I needed to ask you a private question about a book. Could you email me at joe@mudcat.org?

Thanks.

-Joe-