Circular No. 139. lasuedJune s, 1911. 



United States Department of Agriculture, 



BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY. 



L. O. HOWARD, Entomologist and Chief of Bureau. 



DAMAGE TO SUGAR CANE IN LOUISIANA BY THE 

 SUGAR-CANE BORER. 



(Diatraea saccharalis Fab.) 



By T. C. Barber. 



Agent and Expert. 



(The work upon which this circular is based was conducted in direct cooperation with the Louisiana 

 Sugar Experiment Station, Audubon Park, Xew Orleans, La.). 



IXTEODUCTIOX. 



The sugar-cane borer (Diatrsea §acc7iaraUs ^ Fab.) has been the most 

 serious insect enemy of sugar cane with which the Louisiana planter 

 has had to contend for many years. In a bulletin of the Louisiana 

 Experiment Station - Dr. W. C, Stubbs gave an exhaustive account of 

 the probable source of introduction in 1856, in cane imported from 

 South America, He also referred to numerous cases of severe infesta- 

 tion which occurred at various times previous to ISSO. In ISSO ' 

 Dr. L. O. Howard conducted investigations on this insect, and men- 

 tioned that the first specimen was sent in to the Department of Agri- 

 culture at Washington in 1878. He also cites several instances of 

 previous severe infestation, one occurring as far back as 1857 ''along 

 the Lower ^lississippi."' In 1891 Prof. H. A. Morgan published a 

 bulletin on the "Sugar-Cane Borer and its Parasite, " * in response to a 

 demand for information following a severe outbreak of the cane borer 

 in 1890. Another severe outbreak in Louisiana in 1900 was followed 

 by the pubhcation of Bulletin 70, referred to above, in which Dr. 

 Stubbs gave the first statement as to the actual amount of financial 

 damage caused to sugar cane by the cane borer (p. 889). In the case 

 of one factory, where fair comparison was obtainable between cane 



> The form which attacks the stalks of com. previously confused with Z>ta/rya saccharalu, has been found 

 by Dr. H. G. Dyar of this bureau to belong to a new species and has been described by him under the 

 name Diatrxa zeacolella. (See Entomological Xews. vol. 22, no. 5, p. 203, May, 1911.) 



sCane Borer (Diatrxa saccliaTalii). Bui. 70, 2d ser.. La. Exp. Sta., Baton Rouge, La., 1902, W. C. 

 Stubbs and H. A. Morgan. 



' Rept. Dept. Agr., ISSO, p. 240. 



«Bul. 9, 2d ser.. La. Exp. Sta., 1891. 

 89D48— Cir. 139—11 



