April, '09] JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 163 



The work Avhicli we have yet done in this field at Auburn, Alabama, 

 is but a beginnino: in line with an investigation which promises to re- 

 quire several years for its completion. The general plan and purposes 

 of the investigation have been outlined in a preceding paper. In this 

 work I am being assisted by Mr. W. F. Turner, to whom is due much 

 of the credit for the execution of the work. Thus far our work has 

 dealt only with corn and cow-peas and some of the insects infesting 

 them. We consider the results as only tentative, but still as of suf- 

 ficient suggestiveness to be worthj' of your consideration. The princi- 

 pal points investigated thus far are the effects of the gas upon the 

 germination of treated corn and upon the life of adults and immature 

 stages of Calandra oryza, Silvanus suriuamensis and Bruchns chin- 

 en sis. 



The investigations of Hicks and Dabney. as reported in Circular 11, 

 United States Department of Agriculture, Division of Botany, indi- 

 cated that field corn is one of the seeds most susceptible to injury by 

 gas treatment. In their experiments the germination of corn treated 

 for forty-eight hours with a saturated atmosphere of gas was reduced 

 forty per cent, or from 94 per cent in the cheek to 54 per cent in the 

 treated lot. A twenty-four hour treatment, however, resulted in no 

 injury. 



In our tests of the effect of the gas upon the germination of seed corn 

 we have used two varieties. Number one is known as "Henry Grady" 

 and is a white, dent corn, which is much subject to weevil attack. 

 Number two is known as "Station Yellow" and is a yellow flint corn, 

 which has been selected for several years to secure greater resistance to 

 weevil attack. Each of the twenty-five lots tested included one hun- 

 dred seeds and the seeds were taken from several ears so as to make 

 the lots as nearly uniform as possible. One lot in every five was used 

 as a check. The weight of each lot was determined before treatment 

 and immediately after being removed from the gas. The strength of 

 gas used was a "saturated atmosphere" at the room temperature, 

 which was about 68 degrees. The temperature is continuously re- 

 corded by a thermograph. The actual strength of gas used was about 

 seventy-five pounds of CS,, per 1.000 cubic feet. 



In two lots the seeds were soaked in water for one hour before being 

 placed in the gas. In this time the seeds gained 11.2 per cent on their 

 original weight. It is sufficient to say that all seeds were killed in 

 these two lots in treatments of forty and seventy-two hours. Other 

 tests have shown that corn will absorb in a two minutes submersion 

 in water as much moisture as it will subsequently lose in two days in 



