February, '19] caffreY: EUROPEAN CORN borer 103 



Mr. H. a. Reynolds: I want to say for the American Plant Pest 

 Committee, which is an outgrowth of the Committee on the Suppres- 

 sion of the Pine Bhster Rust, that we have held a meeting of all the 

 state agricultural commissioners and state entomologists in New 

 England, and it was unanimously agreed that we should try extermi- 

 nation. Nobody knows whether we can exterminate this pest or not, 

 but we feel that with a three billion dollar crop at stake, we can afford 

 to spend five hundred thousand to a million dollars a year eternally 

 to keep it confined to Massachusetts. 



Mr. Beattie brought up a very interesting proposition which appeals 

 to me. He said that the government tried to get the fellows out in 

 the states interested in the bhster rust for years, and I know that is 

 true, but now it seems in this case the situation is reversed. We feel 

 that the department at Washington wants to put in only twenty-five 

 to thirty thousand dollars, as they have told us, for investigation. I 

 have the highest respect for investigators, but since we know one way 

 of deahng with the pest, it seems to us in New England that we ought 

 to go ahead and kill all of them we can during the time we are making 

 the investigation, and it has been proposed that we ask for an appro- 

 priation of five hundred thousand dollars for that work, this coming 

 year. We were to have a conference here today. Dr. Marlatt, I 

 understand, is not able to appear. I do hope that this organization 

 will go on record to back up the American Plant Pest Committee in 

 this proposition. 



Mr. W. E. Britton: Mr. Burgess might have told us more about 

 the experience in Massachusetts of fighting the gipsy moth and how 

 the state kept up the work for ten years and then stopped for five, and 

 he might have told you the number of hundreds and thousands of 

 square miles that the insect occupied when they took up the work 

 again in 1905 or 1906. 



I had the privilege of visiting Massachusetts in September last, and 

 looking at some of the infested corn in the vicinity and just west of 

 Boston. In my opinion, this is one of the most dangerous insects which 

 has ever been introduced into this country, and I believe it is twenty- 

 five times more dangerous than the pine bhster rust ever was, or ever 

 will be. It is a question whether it can ever be exterminated, but we 

 never know whether we can do anything until we try. It is certain 

 that if it ever can be exterminated, it can be done now much easier 

 than it can be five or ten years from now. 



I am in favor of a large appropriation, and of making a strenuous 

 attempt to exterminate that insect, and I expect that we can at least 

 hold it where it is for a long time. Of course, if we fail, that is a thing 

 which we may do in any attempt which wo may rnak(\ hut I hclicvc it is 



