The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-09-08
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORM ALTON
BUREAU
FREDERIC J. HARKRS. Diroc4er.
waahinStsa, D. G
A NEW BUG TO FIGHT.

worlds greatest foAd resources, is
menaced by a strange bug.
A foreign insect, the European
corn-borer, which came into the coun-
try as a stow-away on ships sometime
during the war, has appeared in the
truck fields near Boston and also in
New York. Unchecked by any of the
natural enemies that prey upon it in
its native country, the insect is spread
ing at an alarming rate. Last sum-
Der only about 400 square miles near
Boston were affected. There are now
l, 400 square miles which are infected
with the new pest. II it continues to
spread at this rate, in few years it
gions of the middle west, and when
it does that, every American is likely
to feel the malign power of this bug in
the form of a corn famine.
Perhaps the greatest difficulty about
fighting an insect pest in this country
is that a small inconspicuous bug does
not lend himself to advertising. He
has no hold upon the popular imag-
nation. If a pest of tigers or rat
tlesnakes should appear in New Eng
land or New York, there would be
no difficulty in getting the men and
the money with which to fight them.
The newspapers would play them up
in big headlines, state legislatures
would hold extra sessions to make ap-
preparations, volunteers would hurry
to the scene armed to the teeth. Even
sudden influx of birds or small ro-
dents. which threatened to destroy an
important crop, would get fair share
of attention-as would anything, IN
fact, which could be seen and photo
graphed. But mere bug, which lives
inside of a stalk of corn, doesn't get
any attention except from a few farm
ers who are Immediately affected, and
few scientists who make a life BUSH
ness of fighting bugs.
Boston housewives have noticed
this year that a remarkably large per-
centage OF sweet corn offered in the
local markets Is worm-eaten. That
is about all the notice the European
corn borer has received outside of the
areas where he is at work, raising his
little family OF five or six hundred
children twice year, and getting
ready to devour the corn upon which
we have always relied to fatten our
beef and pork.
Unless millions are spent within-the
next few years to check his ravages,
this bug will surely make meat scarce
and expensive, and he may cause
something like panic in a large part
Of the United States.
The plain fact of the matter is that
the insects are mans most dangerous
enemies on earth, and the only ones
which can dispute his control of ma
scuttles out of sight when the lord of
the earth comes along, or else works
| for him in a humble spirit. But the
| mosquito calmly perches on his nose
and pours into his veins the deadly
| poison of malaria; the louise travels
with his armies, infects them with
! typhus and kills more of them than
| does the enemy; the fly lives in the
same house with him and brings ty-
phoid fever as part OF his baggage.
| weevil, the gypsy moth, the pink
weevil, and the Hessian fly devour
/ millions of dollars worth of crops right
under his eyes and he is unable to
stop them. The insects are eating us
up and killing US off, but because they
are small and inconspicuous, and we
are too dull to appreciate anything
/ that is not large and noisy, we let
them get away with 1t.
This new importation from Europe
Is described by scientists as the most
serious insect pest that has yet struck
u.s. In its mature stage 1t is a moth.
This moth lays eggs upon the leaves
and stalks of young corn during the
summer and also upon some other
food plants and weeds. In a few DAYS
the eggs hatch out as caterpillars.
The caterpillars have a happy faculty.
of boring into the center of a stalk OF
corn, and also into the cars. They de-
YOUR the grain, sap the vitality of the
stalk, and sometimes cause IL to rot
and die. The loss is often more than
90 per cent and may be almost total.
A million borers have been estimated
to inhabit an acre of corn.
The borer spends the winter in the
corn stalk, and towards spring rolls
himself up in a cocoon of his own
manufacture. After a brief sleep he
| Cor she) matches out as a moth and
starts the process all over again. The
moth lives only a month at most, but
in that time it finds a mate and the
pair produce from three hundred to
| twelve hundred eggs.
1t is the moths that cause the spread
OF the pest. When they first hatch
out. they get up in the air and fly
Often wind helps them along. The
fact that an infected area Of 400
square miles was more than tripled
as the result OF two hatchings OF
moths will give you an idea of how
far these creatures can travel. II
would not take many generations for
them to cross tine continent, populat-
ing it as they went.
The weak spot in the corn borer's
way of life is his habit of spending the
winter in a dry corn stalk. BY burn
ing all the corn stalks in an infected
area. and also all the other stalks 81
plants in which the borer h.bernates
.