TERMITES IN THE UNITED STATES. 19 



longitudinal tunnels or viaducts, constructed by termites often can 

 be observed between crevices in the bark of infested dead and living 

 trees to a considerable distance above the ground. 



DAMAGE TO FIELD CROPS. 



In the Southern States termites occasionally injure the stems and 

 roots of a great variety of apparently healthy field crops, including 

 both grain and truck crops, among which may be listed corn, cotton, 

 sugar cane, rice, grasses, and a great variety of garden vegetables. 

 In Kansas the species lucifugus is reported to inhabit dry vegetable 

 and fibrous substances. 



Injury of this character has been only occasionally recorded, and 

 in consequence there has been, and is, considerable doubt as to whether 

 termites are capable of attacking perfectly healthy living plants, it 

 being usually considered that the plants attacked were previously 

 either diseased or injured. However, termites are capable of such 

 primary attack, although such injury in every case is not necessarily 

 primary. 



Comstock, as early as 1879, stated that in the Southern States 

 termites infest living plants such as sugar cane (Florida) and 

 pampas grass (Texas), attacking that part of the plant which is at 

 cr just below the surface of the ground. The bases or stalks of 

 pampas grass are hollowed; in case of sugar cane the most serious 

 injury is the destruction of the seed cane. On July 6, 1915, T. E. 

 Holloway found workers and soldiers of Leucotermes sp. in burrows 

 of Diatraea in sugar cane at New Orleans, La. 



- Kent states that at Roxie, Miss., termites x destroyed a good many 

 cotton stalks during the summer of 1887, attacking the stalk just 

 below the soil and eating out the interior, which would kill the 

 plant in every instance. 



F. H. Chittenden records injury to roots of cranberry at Borden- 

 town, N. J.; also, in cases where the species of termite was not 

 determined, to young squash plants at Brownsville, Mercedes, and 

 Mission, Tex. 



COTTON. 



W. D. Hunter, in charge of Southern Field Crop Insect Investi- 

 gations, has furnished the following field notes. 



H. Pinkus, on June 22, 1910, in a cotton field on an irrigated 

 farm at Lampasas, Tex., noticed many dead plants and some dying 

 at certain places between healthy plants. Upon digging up the 

 ground he discovered termites 2 destroying the stem about 2 inches 

 below the surface of the soil, a hole being bored through the stem 

 and into the heart of the plant; some plants were recently killed. 

 Pinkus stated that on June 30, 1910, in a cotton field at Granbury, 



1 Leucotermes flavipes. 2 Leucotermes lucifugus. 



