Results of Winter Cereal Experiments. 123 



Summary: Oats. 



Algerian is still deservedly the most popular oat variety of the 

 south-west Cape for ])oth hay and grain. As a grain oat, Texas stands 

 second to Algerian in the same area. 



Burt is a variety of recent introduction, and is becoming popular 

 as a hay oat on account of its extremely early maturity. This variety, 

 due to the sniallness and lightness of its grain is not favoured as a 

 g-rain oat. 



Smyrna is better suited to the inland sections of the South Karroo 

 than to the coastal belt, and answers well under irrigation. It yields 

 a coarse hay and is chiefly grown for grain. 



The Eviropean Corn Borer. 



Maize, a plant of American origin, has met in South 

 Africa a native African insect, the maize stalk borer, which 

 damages the growing plant more than all other insects 

 combined. Quite a different insect, but one which attacks the plant 

 in much the same way, has lately found its way Troni the old world to 

 America. It attacks a very wide variety of plants apart from maize 

 and other plants of the grass family, and it is thought to have got 

 into America with importations of hemp from Europe. In 1917 it 

 was discovered near Boston, Massachusetts, and an investigation dis- 

 closed that it occurred throughout an area of only about a hundred 

 square miles. By the middle of 1919 this infested area had increased 

 to 1600 square miles, and two supplementary infested areas had been 

 discovered. The Florida Plant Board's Quarterly Bulletin states as 

 follows about the pest: — "What is regarded by entomologists as one 

 of the most serious insect pests yet found in the United States has 

 occupied an area of 1400 square miles near Boston, Mass., an area of 

 about 200 square miles on Cape Cod, and still another area of 300 

 square miles at Schenectady, New York. This insect is the European 

 corn borer, Pyrausta nuhilnlis Hubner, and it Ihi-eatens to do more 

 damage, in the aggregate, than any pest with which the farmers or 

 fruit growers of America have yet had to contend. Already the 

 States of Massachusetts and New York have each expended nearly 

 1100,000.00 in fighting it, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture 

 is using a Congressional appropriation of |250,000.00 for the same 

 purpose, appropriated by Congress in August, 1019. The Depart- 

 ment is asking for an additional appropriation of |500,000.00, and a 

 conference of State Commissioners of Agriculture and Official Ento- 

 mologists, held at Albany, N.Y., and Boston, Mass., on 28th and 29th 

 August, has recommended to Congress that |2, 000, 000. 00 be appro- 

 priated at once to combat the pest, with the additional appropriation, 

 later, of as many more millions of dollars as may be necessary " 



