No. 123.] REPORT OF COMMISSIONER. 11 



Com Borer. 

 The work in connection with the control of the European 

 corn borer has been taken over largely by the United States 

 government. In co-operation with them we are enforcing a 

 quarantine against this pest. A year ago this quarantine ap- 

 plied only to corn, but it seemed advisable this year to extend 

 it, so that it now applies to corn and broom corn, including 

 all parts of the stalk, celery, green beans in the pod, beets 

 with tops, spinach, rhubarb, oat and rye straw as such or 

 when used for packing, cut flowers or entire plants of chrys- 

 anthemum, aster, cosmos, zinnia, hollyhock, and cut flowers 

 or entire plants of gladiolus and dahlia, except the bulbs thereof 

 without stems. All of these products except corn are allowed 

 to move outside the infested area providing they pass inspec- 

 tion. The insect has spread very little during the past year, 

 only twelve new towns having been found infested. These 

 were quarantined immediately. During the year new in- 

 festations were discovered in New York State and Canada, 

 the latter infestation covering a large area and being con- 

 sidered more dangerous to the corn section of this country 

 than those in New York or Massachusetts. 



White Pine Blister Rust. 



Work in the control of the white pine blister rust has been 

 conducted in co-operation with the Bureau of Plant Industry, 

 United States Department of Agriculture. This year this con- 

 trol work has been carried out almost entirely on the local 

 co-operative basis, one town (Petersham), the Massachusetts 

 Department of Conservation and thirty property owners sub- 

 scribing a total of $2,377 for co-operative work. With the 

 funds available as a result of this co-operation, field work has 

 been in progress in sections of eleven towns in the State. 



In these towns 19,389 acres of land have been examined and 

 1,224,306 wild and 1,421 cultivated Ribes (currants and goose- 

 berries) destroyed, at an average cost of 54 cents per acre. 



The disease is still generally distributed throughout the 

 State, but where control work has been performed very satis- 

 factory results have been noted. 



