102 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 12 



I simply mention this to show that there may be more possibility of 

 rapid spread of the corn borer than we think at present. 



Another factor in connection with the spread is this: When you 

 get a large area heavily infested the spread will be much more rapid 

 than when the area is small even if it is well infested. These are factors 

 in the problem that should be considered. 



Mr. R. K. Beattie: There is a parallel in the White Pine Blister 

 Rust that I wish to call to your attention. For four or five years the 

 Office of Forest Pathology of the Bureau of Plant Industry tried to get 

 people interested in the eradication of the White Pine Blister Rust. 

 At that time its area of distribution in the United States was small. 

 Because the disease was spreading slowly, people ignored it and no one 

 could be interested in combating it. Suddenly it became epidemic. 

 In two years it had spread so rapidly that the cleaning up of the White 

 Pine forests of New England was impossible. Before that epidemic, 

 anyone would have said that New England could be cleaned up. Now, 

 such an effort is made only in isolated localities. I cannot say that 

 there is necessarily parallelism between plant diseases and insects, but 

 in both groups we do have epidemics. We have had entirely too many 

 cases in this country among plant diseases where we have tried to find 

 out scientifically all about the disease before we began to fight it. 

 When citrus canker first appeared in the United States some patholo- 

 gists believed its study should be completed before the work of combat- 

 ing it began. But the fight was really begun on this disease while it 

 was still thought to be caused by a fungus. Later, its bacterial cause 

 was discovered after the campaign of eradication was well under way. 

 Happily in this case the campaign has been very successful and the 

 disease has been almost completely eradicated. If they had waited 

 until they found out all about it we would never have gotten rid of 

 citrus canker. 



Mr. W. H. Goodwin: Naturally I am interested in the Japanese 

 beetle, that has been estabHshed practically for eight years, and I be- 

 lieve it is a good time to wipe it out while we have a chance. We must 

 stamp it out or it will get away, and it has got to be handled sufficiently 

 rough to get rid of it in the next two or three seasons. 



Mr. W. C. O'Kane: I would hke to have the permission of the 

 association to propose the following motion : That this association en- 

 dorse the utmost possible measure of eradication of the European corn 

 borer, and further endorse the proposition of asking Congress for suf- 

 ficient appropriation to undertake immediately a competent campaign 

 of eradication under Federal direction. Motion seconded. 



Mr. E. p. Felt: I want to go on record as representing an adjacent 

 state, in favor of going to the limit. 



