PROGRESS REPORT ON THE EUROPEAN CORN BORER 
119 
tory. Sometimes this material is dumped along the edges of flood 
levels of streams or bodies of water, with the consequent danger of 
its dispersion. Infested cornstalks and other plant material con- 
taining living larvae have been found distributed along the beaches 
of New England and also upon the shores of an island several miles 
from the mainland. Infested material of this kind has also been 
found distributed along the shore of Lake Erie on the Canadian side. 
WASTE PRODUCTS 
The refuse from canning factories using sweet corn from infested 
fields commonly contains large numbers of living larvae or pupae. 
This refuse usually consists of the cobs, husks, silk, ear stems, and 
ears on which the kernels are not properly developed, or which are 
affected by insects or plant diseases. Most of this infested material 
is hauled away by farmers, often to points outside the infested 
Fig. 48. — Waste from canning factory dumped at edge of field. Many of these 
sweet-corn cobs were infested. They should be collected when dry and burned. 
Silver Creek, N. Y., September, 1920 
area, and fed to livestock or used as fertilizer. Under these condi- 
tions an opportunity is afforded for any borers contained within 
the materials to escape en route, and others may escape after reaching 
the farm (fig. 48), thus starting new infestations. 
Keference has previously been made to the danger of dispersing the 
insect in refuse from broom factories. During the process of manu- 
facturing brooms, sections several inches long are usually removed 
from the butts and discarded. The European corn borer has been 
found commonly in that portion of the plant comprising the butt in 
broomcorn grown in Massachusetts and also in the butts of raw 
broomcorn imported from Italy and Hungary. This refuse may 
become a source of danger, especially when dumped along the banks 
of water courses. The original infestation along the Mohawk River 
in eastern New York is supposed to be directly traceable to infested 
refuse from a broom factory at Amsterdam. 
