40 THE EEPOET OF THE No. 36 



receiving from Congress an annual appropriation of upwards of half a million 

 dollars. The work involved covers a very wide range, including extensive clean-up 

 operations in Texas, the enforcement of a quarantine service between Mexico and 

 the United States, the control of all import cotton into the United States and of 

 the cotton mills in this country which make use of such import cotton, and also 

 the control of cottonseed cake and meal and any other product relating to cotton 

 which may be a means of introducing the insect. 



Another important quarantine feature under the Board is the white pine 

 blister rust quarantine, which has for its special object the protection of the great 

 pine areas of the western half of the United States from infestation from the 

 eastern half of the United States where this disease has gained wide and probably 

 firm foothold. 



One of the later quarantines has relation to the European borer which has 

 recently obtained foo'thold in the neighborhood of Boston and in a limited area 

 near Albany, N. Y. We are asking Congress "for an appropriation of $500,000 for 

 quarantine and other control work in relation to this borer. Inasmuch as this 

 insect is known to infest practically all succulent vegetation, even grasses, and 

 is so concealed as to make its discovery difficult, its extermination is recognized 

 as an impossibility, but if it cannot be exterminated, it certa'n^y can 1 e controlled. 

 I do not believe in being unnecessarily alarmed over the introduction of any new 

 pest, and in the case of this new corn borer, the last year's experience has demon- 

 strated that there are at least four important controlling factors which may later 

 on show this pest to be a comparatively unimportant one, certainly indicating 

 that Canada, for example, need have very little fear on account of it. These 

 hopeful or controlling factors are : ( 1 ) for the northern areas of corn culture, 

 single-broodedness with accompanying negligible damage indicated; (2) possi- 

 bility of cultural control by the elimination of weeds; (.3) the immunity now 

 indicated for ordinary field corn, and (-i) the possibility of effective egg parasitism. 



(The introduction of this insect through the agency of imported broom corn 

 and its probable wide dissemination in the Ignited States was discussed in some 

 detail.) 



Another problem that has recently come up to the Board is the potato wart 

 disease, one of the three plant enemies specifically mentioned in the Federal 

 Quarantine Act to be immediately guarded against. This disease was evidently 

 brought into this country in the winter and spring of 1911-13 before the Quaran- 

 tine Act was passed. The Department of Agriculture through the Federal Horti- 

 cultural Board is co-operating with the State of Pennsylvania in a thoroughgoing 

 campaign to eradicate this pest. The work of the last season, now concluded, has 

 presented a very much more hopeful outlook also with respect to this potato 

 disease. In other words, the principal commercial varieties of potatoes grown 

 in the United States have developed a substantial immunity to this disease and 

 it looks very possible, therefore, that it can be controlled through the growth of 

 these immune varieties and other varieties, the immunity of which has already 

 been demonstrated in European countries. 



These are a few of the important subjects which the Board now has under 

 way. Other subjects are the Oriental fruit or peach moth which came from Japan 

 on ornamental cherry stock and has obtained rather wide frothold in the District 

 of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia and also in New York and a few other places. 

 This pest might have come to this country on any shipment of Japanese ornamental 

 cherry or peach stock, but apparently obtained its first fo.othold throiigh a ship- 



