JOURNAL 



OF 



ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 



OFFICIAL ORGAN AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGISTS 



Vol. 15 AUGUST, 1922 No. 4 



American Association of Economic Entomologists — Pro- 

 ceedings of the Thirty-fourth Annual Meeting. 



{Continued) 



Afternoon Session, Saturday, December ji, iQ2i, i.jo p.m. 



President George A. Dean: The first paper on the program, is 

 entitled "The Argentine Ant in Mississippi," by R. W. Harned and 

 M. R. Smith. 



ARGENTINE ANT CONTROL CAMPAIGNS IN MISSISSIPPI 



By R. W. Harned and M. R. Smith 



Fotirteen years ago at the Chicago Meeting of the American Association 

 of Economic Entomologists, WiLmon Newell, then of Louisiana, began 

 a paper on the Argentine ant with the following rem_arks: 



"It is not often that the economic entomologist is privileged to behold the coming 

 of a new and dangerous pest, to see its numbers rapidly increasing for several years 

 before it attracts more than casual attention from the 'layman,' and yet be prac- 

 tically powerless to avert the threatened catastrophe. 



An insect problem practically unheard of by the majority of the members of this 

 Association, is now presenting itself in the State of Louisiana, and will shortly present 

 itself to most if not all of the southern portion of this country. It is, withal, a 

 problem which in the writer's humble opinion will rank in magnitude alongside the 

 problems presentedby the San Jose scale, gypsy moth and boll weevil, but in marked 

 contrast to these it is not likely to admit of remedial measures being as easily applied. 



In his brief experience as an entomologist, the writer has not encountered or heard 

 of any species which exercises its destructive abilities in so many different directions. 

 As a household pest I venture the opinion that this ant has no equal in the United 

 States. It is both a direct and indirect enemy of horticulture; direct by actual 

 destruction of buds, blooms and fruit, and indirect by its fostering care of various 

 scale insects and plant lice. In the latter role it becomes also an enemy of importance 

 to shade and ornamental trees and plants. By its association with Pseudococcus 

 calceolariae (Mask.) it may wipe out, or at least make unprofitable, the production 

 of cane sugar in the South. By its successful antagonism of beneficial forms it 

 becomes doubly injurious." 



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