168 INSECT PESTS OF FARM, GARDEN AND ORCHARD 



Injury. Injury from these insects is, as the name indicates, 

 due to their boring in the stalks of the food plant. It may be 

 anywhere from slight to total. They seem to prefer crops grown 

 on sandy soil. 



Control. Absolutely clean cultivation, including cleaning 

 up of fence rows and waste places, along with late fall plowing, 

 are recommended as the best methods of control. 



FIG. 144. Map showing present known distribution of the lesser corn stalk- 

 borer (Elasmopalpus lignosellus) in the United States. (After Luginbill 

 and Ainslie, L. C.) 



The Corn Ear-worm * 



Practically the only insect injuring the ears of field-corn and 

 the worst insect pest of sugar-corn, is the ear-worm. In the 

 extreme South it is almost impossible to grow sugar-corn success- 

 fully on account of its injury, while farther north it largely reduces 

 the profits of corn grown for the cannery, and destroys a consider- 

 able percentage of the kernels of field-corn. It is a most cosmopol- 

 itan insect, being found throughout the United States and in many 

 parts of the world, and has a long list of food plants, being known 

 as the tomato fruit-worm, tobacco bud-worm, and cotton* boll- 



* Chloridea obsolete, Fab. Family Noctuidce. 



See H. Garman, Bulletin 187, Kentucky Agr. Expt. Station and Farmers' 

 Bulletin 872, U. S. Dept. Agr.) 



