282 THE BOOK OF CORN 



moth has a wing expanse of a little less than an inch ; 

 the fore wings are pale leaden gray with transverse 

 black markings. The caterpillar is whitish and hairy. 

 It is their habit of web spinning that renders them so 

 injurious where they obtain a foothold. It is while 

 searching for a proper place for transformation that 

 the insect becomes troublesome. The infested flour 

 becomes felted together and lumpy, the machinery is 

 clogged, necessitating frequent and prolonged stop- 

 page, and resulting in a short time in the loss of 

 thousands of dollars in large establishments. Although 

 the larva prefers flour or meal, it will attack grain 

 when the former are not available, and it flourishes 

 also on bran, prepared cereal foods, including buck- 

 wheat grits and crackers. When a mill is found to be 

 infested, the entire building should be fumigated, and 

 in case a whole district becomes overrun, the greatest 

 care must be observed not to spread the pest. Unin- 

 fested mills should be tightly closed at night, and every 

 bushel of grain, every bag or sack brought into the 

 mill, subjected to a quarantine process by being disin- 

 fected either by hydrocyanic acid gas or bisulphid 

 of carbon. 



THE CORN SMUT 



Corn smut is very common throughout the United 

 States and familiar to every cultivator. In ordinary 

 years the yield is decreased by it on the average from a 

 fraction of one per cent to about two per cent, while 

 in exceptional seasons and in particular localities the 

 loss may reach ten per cent, or in rare cases even fifty 

 or sixty per cent. Compared with some fungous dis- 

 eases of cultivated crops, this is a low percentage of 

 injury; and yet for the whole country it represents 

 many millions of dollars annually. Even for single 

 farms, where corn is a staple product, it is an amount 

 worth saving. 



