BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY AND PLANT QUARANTINE 5 
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Gypsy moth control and certification activities 81 
White-fringed beetle activites 82 
Cotton sprays also provide good white-fringed beetle control 82 
DDT-fertilizer mix tested for white-fringed beetle control 82 
Regulatory activities 83 
Aircraft and special equipment center 84 
Improvements in administrative procedure 85 
Organization of the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine 86 
THIS YEAR IN BRIEF 
Two popularly accepted items were among this year's Bureau con- 
tributions. Insects, the Yearbook of Agriculture, 1952, for which 
Bureau personnel had major responsibility for text and illustrations, 
was chosen by the Textbook Clinic of the American Institute of 
Graphic Arts as one of the outstanding textbooks of the year, in addi- 
tion to its inclusion in the 1953 list of the Fifty Books of the Year 
selected on the basis of book design by the Trade Book Clinic. EQ-53, 
a formula that mothproofs washable woolens by merely adding a few 
spoonfuls of an emulsifiab]e concentrate to the wash or rinse water, 
was widely publicized and many manufacturers are now formulating 
it for retail sale. 
Comprehensive plans were made during the year for a concentrated 
attack on the pink bollworm, the most destructive of cotton pests. For 
the first time in its 36 years' existence in the Southwest, this pest has 
caused extensive commercial damage in southern Texas. 
Possibly the most destructive bark bettle epidemic ever experienced 
is developing in the Douglas-fir forests of western Oregon. Before it 
is controlled or runs its natural course the beetle is expected to kill 
upwards of 5 billion board feet of timber. Insects rank close to the 
top among destructive agencies in our forests. During the last 10 
years they have been especially severe. For example, more than 4 
billion board feet of Engelmann spruce were killed in a single epi- 
demic of a bark beetle in Colorado. In Oregon and Washington more 
than 2% million acres of fir forest have been sprayed by airplanes to 
prevent wholesale killing of valuable trees by the spruce budworm. 
Corn insect research was realined to place more emphasis on the con- 
trol of all major corn pests and to mesh Bureau projects with similar 
research by the States and other agencies. Previous work has been 
largely concentrated on methods of controlling the European corn 
borer and the corn earworm. 
All Bureau research involving the application of techniques of 
atomic science to insect investigations is being coordinated by a Radio- 
isotope Committee. In addition to supervising the use of radioactive 
materials, the Radioisotope Committee will suggest further uses that 
may be made of such materials. Three Bureau scientists, two ento- 
mologists and a chemist, have completed a training course at the Oak 
Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies, Oak Ridge, Tenn., to learn how 
radioisotopes may be utilized in entomological research. Previous 
Bureau research employing radioactive insects and materials is being 
extended to study how an insecticide kills an insect, the translocation 
of systemic insecticides, factors in insect resistance to insecticides, the 
distance and speed of insect migration, the abundance of insects, bee 
feeding habits, and the spread of bee diseases. 
