232 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY IVol. 15 



handling of the corn during harvesting operations will cause some borers 

 to become restless and to leave the stalks. This is unavoidable. 



A silo extension campaign should be strenuously waged. 



The cutting box kills most of the borers ; those that escape the knives 

 are accounted for by the heat and the fermentation of the silage. A 

 very few larvae in several inch-lengths of stalk, that have escaped the 

 knives at filling time, walk up the sides of the silo and escape. Some 

 escape from the stalks at cutting time, into the machine. Hens were 

 observed to eat these greedily. 



Where There is no Silo 



In dealing with the stalks, the handling of corn for feeding as stover 

 and of husking corn, presents the chief problem. 



The removal of stallcs frojn the field directly after harvest so as to 

 allow of the ear/3^ plowing of the field, presents at present the greatest single 

 difficulty in control measures. 



Farmers prefer to leave the stooks in the field until dry, rather than 

 haul them to some other field or land, to dry sufficiently to allow of their 

 being put into the barn without moulding. 



We recommend the shredding where possible of all corn stalks used 

 as fodder. This insures many of the borers being killed and the m.ore 

 complete eating of the corn by stock. The processs of shredding causes 

 many larvae to leave their burrows and they then fall among the grain 

 that shells out from the cobs. It was found that 80% of these were killed. 

 When shredding is not practicable, the stalks after feeding and stalks 

 used as bedding should not be thrown out into manure heaps as is 

 usually done, but should be piled separately in an enclosiire where the 

 cattle cannot scatter them around, and should be burned. The fate of 

 larvae in stalks trodden into ,maniu-e and the effectiveness of this means 

 of dealing with waste stalks, has not yet been completely worked out. 

 It is still under investigation and observation. 



Some farmers have been in the habit of burning waste stalks every 

 week; they claim that it gives very little extra trouble. In any case the 

 waste pile should be burned by the end of May, before pupation com- 

 mences. If corn stalks are wet and are densely piled, the larvae leave 

 the bottom layers early in spring and migrate to the upper three inches. 

 Where the upper surface of the pile is dry, it can be readily burned over 

 before June. In piles of dry stalks, the larvae do not migrate to the 

 top and will pupate in their burrows from ground level right up through 

 the mass and the moths will all emerge. In one case, it was found that 

 all moths had emerged from a load of stalks 4 ft. 10 inches high, from 



