The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1919-09-08

Washington. Sept. 6.-The corn crop
of America, one Of the worlds greatest
food resources. isSmenaced by strange
bug.
A foreign insect. the European corn
borer, which came into the country as
a stow away on ships some time during
the war, has appeared In the truck
fielda near Boston and also in New
York. Unchecked by any OF the natural
enemies that prey upon 1t in its native
country, the insect Is spreading at an
alarming rate. Last summer only about
400 square miles near Boston were af-
fected. There are now 1.400 square
miles infested with the new pest. II IT
continues to spread at this rate. In
few years It will reach the great corn
growing regions of the middle west,
and when 1t does that, every American
is likely to feel the malign power OF
this bug in the form OF a corn famine
Greatest Difficulty.
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 imagi-
nation, If pest of tigers or rattle
snakes should appear in New England
or New York, there would be no diff
Guilty in getting the men and the money
with which to fight them. The news
papers WOulQ play tltIh w III pib
headlines, state legislatures would hold
extra sessions to make appropriations
volunteers would hurry to the scene,
armed to the teeth. Even a sudden m
fux of birds or small rodents, which
threatened to destroy an important
crop, would get fair share OF atten-
tomas would anything, in fact. which
could be seen and photographed. But
a mere bug, which lives inside of a
stalk of corn, doesn't get any attention
except from a few farmers who are
Immediately affected. and few scien-
lists who make a life business Of
fighting bugs.
Boston housewives have noticed this
year that q remarkably large percent
age 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
wear, and getting ready to devour the
corn crop upon which we have always
relied to fatten our beef and pork.
Cost Millions.
Unless millions are spent within the
next few years to check his rayages,
this bug will surely make meat scarce
and expensive, and he may cause some
thing 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
ture. Every other creature either scut-
ties out of sight when the lord OF the
earth comes along, or else works for
him in an humble spirit. But the mos
quito 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 typhoid fever as part
Of his baggage. The San Jose Scale
the cotton boil weevil, the gypsy moth,
the pink weevi. 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 be-
cause they are small and inconspicuous,
and we are too dull to appreciate any,
thing 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
us. In it's mature stage it 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 few days the
eggs hatch out as caterpillars. The
caterpillars have q happy faculty of
boring into the center of stalk of
corn, and also into the ears. They de-
YOUR the. grain. sap the vitality of the
stalk, and sometimes cause 1t to rot
and die. The loss Is often more than
so 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 toward spring rolls
himself up in a cocoon Of his own man
ufacture. After a brief sleep he Cor
she) hatches out as moth and starts
the process all over again. The moth
lives only month at most. but in that
time it finds mate and the pair pro-
duce from 300 to 100 eggs.
Moths Cause Spread.
It 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 trippled as the result
of two hatchings of moths will give
you an idea how far these creatures
can travel. 1t would not take many
generations of them to cross the con-
tinent, populating 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 burning