EXCLUDING ENEMY ALIENS WITH APPETITES DE LUXE 



1055 



growers and farmers, when told of a newly imported and 

 dangerous plant pest. It would seem as though the 

 time had arrived when in order to grow a tree it is 

 necessary for the one who wishes to harvest its fruits 

 to stand guard over it day and night, armed with a spray 

 can. Many a man has planted a tree and dreamed of the 

 enjoyment he would derive from it as he rested under 

 its benign shade, only to awaken some morning and cry 

 "Where, Oh, where is my little tree - gone?" Observe 

 the classic example of the chestnut blight. This is a bark 

 disease which was brought to this country from the 

 Orient on Japanese chestnut nursery stock. It was first 

 found on western Long Island in 1904 and two years 

 later it had reached southward to Philadelphia. In ten 

 years it spread over half of the chestnut area of the 



AT THE END OF THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE 



Tins once magnificent chestnut has now almost succumbed to the chestnut 

 blight. It is difficult to estimate the enormous financial loss caused by 

 this disease, but a hundred million dollars would seem to be a conserva- 

 tive figure. 



United States and at the present time it has practically 

 exterminated the chestnut trees within a 100-mile radius 

 of New York and is rapidly accomplishing the complete 

 ruin of our magnificent chestnut forests of the South. 

 The loss caused by this single imported pest is many 

 million dollars and its ultimate end will be the extinc- 

 tion of one of the most useful and most profitable Amer- 

 ican forest trees. Only recently it was found that a 

 similar disease attacking the poplars had been imported 

 from the nurseries of France and had spread over a 

 wide area of the United States. 



Other dangerous pests introduced from abroad are the 

 Oriental peach moth, the Japanese beetle, the European 

 earwig, the Leopard moth, the alfalfa weevil, the Euro- 

 pean eel worm, and the European corn borer. The latter 

 is a pest which apparently was brought to the United 

 States in a cargo of hemp unloaded at a rope factory 

 near Boston, Massachusetts. It is exceedingly destruc- 

 tive to corn, feeding by boring in the stalk. In its 

 ition it works upward, eating out a chamber from the 



Photograph by courtesy Massachusetts Department of Agriculture 



BEWARE OF THE EUROPEAN CORN BORER! 



The European Corn Borer has made its appearance in Massachusetts, 

 Connecticut and New York. The corn borer was probably brought into this 

 country several years ago, possibly on hemp, and from its present 

 distribution it would seem as though it was first established in or near 

 Charleston, Massachusetts. It has spread rapidly and is now known to be 

 present in not less than thirty towns in Massachusetts, mostly north 

 and northwest of Boston. 



This insect winters over as a caterpillar in corn stalks and some of 

 the larger weeds. About the middle of May it pupates and emerges as a 

 moth which lays a large number of eggs, sometimes as many as 700. 

 The caterpillars from these eggs feed upon early corn and weeds and do 

 considerable damage. About the last of July these caterpillars pupate and 

 early in August another generation of moths appear. These lay their 

 eggs (this time about 900) on corn and weeds (principally corn) and do a 

 vast amount of damage, feeding on the stalks and ears of corn. It is 

 this caterpillar or borer, that passes the winter in the corn stalks and 

 large garden weeds, such as pigweed, ragweed, and barn-yard grass. 

 The caterpillar which was present in the old corn stalks early in the spring 

 has been responsible for 315,006 borers up to the first of October. As this 

 insect passes the winter in corn stalks and weeds, very effective destruc- 

 tive measures are offered. Pull up and burn all corn stalks together with 

 all old vines and all large weeds throughout and around the garden. 



