486 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 14 



CONTROLLING THE ARMY-WORM IN SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 



By Vernon King and Geo. W. Barber, Cereal & Forage Division, U. S. Bureau 



of Entomology 



The late Lieut. Vernon King was for upwards of three years a member 

 of the staff of the Cereal and Forage Insects Investigations of the U. S. 

 Bureau of Entomolog\\ For considerably over a year he was in charge 

 of a laboratory located in Charleston, Missouri, and here, with the 

 assistance of the junior author, he carried on investigations of many 

 insects injurious to cereal and forage crops. 



Because of the hurried departure of Mr. King in the Fall of 1914 

 to enlist under the colors of England, his native countn,^, and due to 

 the more or less incom.plete nature of his experiments, no contribution 

 from, his pen to the literature of American Economic Entomology has 

 been published under his name. 



To fill this want, and in justice to the memory of Mr. King, who met 

 death on the field of battle, the junior author has gone over his notes 

 and photographs and presents the following short article as representing 

 a sm-all portion of Mr. King's work. The method of control which is 

 here described is entirely the system developed by Mr. King and the 

 figures are from his photographs. 



The region comm.only referred to as vSoutheast Missouri embraces a 

 considerable area of reclaimed, cypress swampland about seventy m.iles 

 wide and nearly one hundred m.iles long in Missouri, extending into 

 Arkansas and embracing nearly the entire eastern half of that state. 

 Here, for ages, the Mississippi River has yearly overflowed its banks, 

 adding each year a thin layer of soil. The section is now being fast 

 reclaimed by extensive systems of drainage canals and protected by 

 levees from the overflow of the river. The climate is warm and humid 

 with a large annual precipitation and this region alread}^ is beginning 

 to show its importance as one of the principal agricultural sections 

 of the state. Here, also, thanks to the comparatively inexhaustible 

 nature of the rich, black soil, all vegetation takes on a very rank growth 

 and injurious insects become more and more important. 



Among the more important insects often injurious to the agriculture 

 in this section, the army-worm, Heliophila unipuncta, is almost annually 

 of importance, frequently occuring in large niimbers and destroying 

 considerable areas of crops. Often the migration of the larvae is from 

 the maturing wheat to adjoining or nearby fields of young com, when, 

 unless prompt steps are taken for the control of the insect, the corn is 

 entirely destroyed. 



