72 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 1940 
houses. From information thus <>1 >t :i i i u*< I it was concluded that there 
Were no infestations of the tobacco moth in park houses of either the 
Georgia or South Carolina belts. Except for the heavily infested 
Farmville area in the eastern Carolina holt of North Carolina, infes- 
tation and damage, while generally light, wore found in about one- 
third of the pack houses examined. Infestation and damage rang- 
ing from liirht to Bevere were found in slightly more than one-half 
of the pack houses examined in the old belt of North Carolina and 
Virginia. Serious Losses were not common except in limited areas of 
concentrated infestation. 
Not only wore the infested areas of lO.'VS increased in extent in 
V.V-W but other infested areas were discovered. A study of these 
strongly indicated that the original sources of infestation for the 
pack nouses were the large storage warehouses. Some of the newer 
and lighter infestations in pack houses appeared to have resulted 
from moths coming directly from storage warehouses. Others were 
traced to the movement of infested scrap tobacco from the auction- 
market warehouse floors to pack houses, where it was stored until 
the following spring to be used on the soil as fertilizer. The infor- 
mation obtained indicated that infestations of the moth can survive 
from one year to the next in the ordinary pack houses, and that the 
surviving moths may spread to other nearby pack houses. 
On the basis of the information obtained from the survey it 
is believed that the most important original sources of infestation 
were the tobacco storage warehouses at Farmville. Durham. Reids- 
ville. and Winston-Salem, N. C, and possibly Danville. Va. The 
natural spread of infestation in pack houses seems to have been in 
a general northeasterly direction from the storage center-. 
In the more heavily, widespread infested areas the moth appears 
to be well established on the farms and to carry over from season 
to season. While no indication can be given as to the probable 
extent and importance that this insect menace may attain, observa- 
tions showed that one means by which it can readily be spread is 
by the transportation of infested tobacco to a market in an uninfected 
area. Ill this manner there is danger of the infestation becoming 
established in the South Carolina belt, because of the common prac- 
tice of selling tohacco there from areas now known to he infested 
with the tobacco moth. Other observations made during the sur- 
vey indicate that a promising means of relieving the situation is 
that of careful packhouse sanitation. This would appear especially 
hopeful where nearby storage warehouses have been screened and 
thoroughly cleaned up so as to remove a source of rein festat ion. 
TOHACCO MOTH AM) CKiAKKTTB BO [XJH I Bj TU \ \ sl'i >K I \ I I<>\ 
Inspection of ships' holds at Norfolk and Newport News. Ya., 
during October, November, and December L939, showed thai practi- 
cally all the imported tohacco examined was infested with both the 
tobacco moth and. the cigarette beetle, the infestation in most in- 
stances being heavy. In some cases two or three types of imported 
tobacco were placed in the same hold, thus introducing the possibility 
of subjecting uninfested type- to infestation during t ransit. In other 
cases American tobacco for export was loaded in ships' holds from 
