FEDERAL, HORTICULTURAL BOARD. 613 



MEANS OF INTRODUCTION AND SPREAD. 



The European corn borer was discovered late in 1917 as an enemy 

 of corn in the vicinity of Boston, Mass., in what was believed at 

 that time to be a rather limited area of perhaps 100 square miles. 

 Hemp straw which had been imported from Europe and utilized 

 in the vicinity of Boston some years before for rope making was 

 then thought to have been the means of introducing this insect. 

 From present information, it seems much more probable that the 

 insect was introduced about nine years ago with large importa- 

 tions of Hungarian broom corn to meet the then existing shortage 

 in the United States of this crop. Of this imported broom corn, 

 some hundreds of tons were utilized for broom making in Boston 

 and like cjuantities went to New York, Kentucky, and other points 

 in the Middle West. The later discovery of the further spread of 

 this insect in the United States seems to correspond closely with the 

 distribution of this imported broom corn. For example, late in 1918, 

 the insect was found to have invaded the Mohawk Valley for a 

 considerable distance, extending from the neighborhood of Albany, 

 N. Y., some 25 or 30 miles up the Mohawk Valley and northward 

 nearly to Saratoga Springs. At the upper part of this district a 

 very large quantity of this imported broom corn had been utilized 

 in a local broom factory. 



The distribution of this insect as now known covers an area of over 

 1,200 square miles about Boston, touching the border of New Hamp- 

 shire and involving two towns in that State. Another considerable 

 outlying point in Massachusetts, involving four towns, was deter- 

 mined in August of this year, 65 miles distant from Boston, at the 

 base of Cape Cod Peninsula. The Albany area in New York has 

 been considerably extended. Two new points of invasion have been 

 determined in New York State: one on the east side of the Hudson 

 River, opposite Albany, and the other 200 miles farther west in 

 extreme western New York. A similar point of infestation has also 

 been deterniined in Erie County, Pa. These last two areas were 

 discovered in late September, 1919. These wide extensions of the 

 insect indicate the need of a thorough-going survey of the north- 

 eastern quarter of the United Stntos, and especially such districts 

 as those in Kentucky and in tlic upper Ohio Valley which are 

 known to have received greater or less quantities of imported broom 

 corn about the same time that it went to Massachusetts and New 

 York. These surveys are now (October) in progress. 



FOOD PLANTS IN THE UNITED STATES. 



Wliile this insect has been designated as the European corn borer, 

 it infests, as already noted, many other plants, such as most annuals, 

 including common grasses, small grains, most garden vegetables, 

 and weeds ; in fact, almost any plant which is not of a hard or 

 woody nature. The fact that this insect is an internal feeder, work- 

 ing in almost any part of the plant and even penetrating the base 

 of plants beneath the ground, together with the almost unlimited 

 number of plants in which it can develop, makes any determination 

 of its actual spread in the United States practically impossible, 

 and this has an important bearing on questions of quarantine or 

 possible future extermination. 



