February, '19] GOODWIN: WORK against Japanese beetle 85 



Mr. W. H. Goodwin: The plans for the coming season are much 

 larger. There is to be considerable increase in the equipment, and 

 following somewhat of a similar plan as we have followed in the past 

 season, including the addition of several trucks, and another tractor, 

 and six or eight tanks for the treatment of the grubs with a solution of 

 sodium cyanide. We have tried putting crystal cyanide in the ground, 

 but as yet results have not been good. There is one other method 

 that could be used in this problem and that is taking over something 

 like fifteen thousand acres, and simply paying those farmers so much for 

 their crop, and putting the entire thing under cultivation and keeping it 

 absolutely polluted with poison where there are field crops. If we 

 could actually take those farms over and keep them under cultivation 

 throughout the season I think we could eradicate this pest within a 

 year. 



Vice-President E. C. Cotton : Does anyone wish to ask any ques- 

 tions or discuss this paper? 



Mr. E. p. Felt: I would like to ask Mr. Goodwin whether it would 

 not be cheaper in the long run to adopt the drastic measure which he 

 suggested at the close of his remarks, and simply eliminate, within 

 practical limits, all vegetation? 



Mr. W. H. Goodwin : That would be much cheaper in the long run, 

 but it means an initial outlay of possibly three or four hundred thou- 

 sand dollars. That country produces some money; in that section they 

 fertilize heavily and they crop with a succession of crops, which makes 

 the total income from an acre very high, and they get top-notch prices 

 in the market at either Philadelphia or New York. 



Mr. E. R. Sasscer : I would Uke to ask Mr. Goodwin if the presence 

 of that cyanide solution in the soil has any effect on the growth of the 

 plant. 



Mr. W. H. Goodwin: As far as we can tell, there is absolutely no 

 effect and no injury where we use a solution of one ounce to fifteen gal- 

 lons of water. We need that amount of water to penetrate, and lack of 

 penetration seems to be the fault of drilling the cyanide into the 

 ground. I don't believe we could use cyanide drilled in the ground 

 except in the fall, and we haven't tested any method extensively except- 

 ing in the fall. 



Mr. E. R. Sasscer: There is one other point in this paper that 

 interested me, and that is in regard to the attraction of the beetle to the 

 light. I remember when this insect was iBrst discovered in New Jersey 

 I had occasion to look up the literature on this beetle, and I was not 

 very successful, but I found among the papers examined a short note 

 on Adoretus tcnuimaculatus, a related insect, which is now established in 



