160 INSECT PESTS OF FARM, GARDEN AND ORCHARD 



Control. It has been observed that late planted corn is much 

 less injured than that planted early, but as it is more seriously 

 injured by some other pests, late planting may not be advisable. 

 Where corn has been seriously injured, the old stalks or butts 



should be dragged off the 

 field and burned late in the 

 fall, thus destroying the 

 over- wintering borers. 

 When corn is stripped for 

 fodder, the stalks left stand- 

 ing and the land sown in 

 small grain, the most favor- 

 able conditions are allowed 

 the borers for safely passing 

 the winter and developing 

 into moths which will fly to 

 new fields in the spring. 



A simple rotation of crops 

 FIG. 135. The larger corn stalk-borer, a, . , , 

 female; 6, wings of male; c, pupal all will also lessen injury con- 

 somewhat enlarged. (After Howard, siderablv, as Dr. L. 

 U. S. Dept. Agr.) TT , , u , ,, 



Howard has observed that 



where fields which had been in corn the previous year were dam- 

 aged 25 per cent, those planted on sod land were damaged but 10 

 per cent, though reasonably close to land which had been in corn. 



Bill-bugs * 



Throughout the South and often in the more Northern States, 

 Canada, and the West the bill-bugs sometimes become serious 

 enemies of young corn-plants. They are called " bill-bugs " on 

 account of the prolongation of the head, termed a bill or snout, 

 peculiar to all the weevils or " snout-bee ties," by means of which 

 they are enabled to drill holes in the corn-stalks. Several species 

 belonging to the genus Sphenophorus are commonly injurious to 

 corn. One of these, S. parvulus GylL, also attacks small grains 

 and timothy, and is therefore known as the Grain Sphenophorus. 

 Another species, S. obscurus Boisd., does considerable injury to 

 sugar-cane in Hawaii. The adult beetles are from one-fourth to 



* Species of Sphenophorus. Family Calandridce. See S. A. Forbes, 23d 

 Report of the State Entomologist of Illinois. Also Farmers' Bulletin 1003, 

 U. S. Dept. Agr., and Z. P. Metcalf, N. C. Expt. Sta. Bull., 13 Tech. 



