February, ’20] 
BALL: EUROPEAN CORN BORER 
85 
$75 per acre were expended in clean-up work in which the borers apparently were 
more severe this year than they were last year. 
I wish here to insert a word to correct a misapprehension which 
seems to be widespread with respect to the alleged delinquency of 
Congress and the consequent wide extension of the corn borer. It 
has repeatedly been intimated that the corn borer extended its range to 
many times its area of last year because Congress did not give immedi¬ 
ately the sum of $500,000 for exterminative work. The facts are that 
the first estimate submitted to Congress—and the amount was only 
$25,000—came before the Agricultural Committee for discussion in a 
hearing on January 8, 1919. As a result of a special hearing, February 
12, 1919, on the European corn borer by representatives of several 
states, there was inserted in this same bill in the Senate under date of 
February 22, 1919, an item of $500,000 to meet the corn borer emer¬ 
gency and the $25,000 item for the bureau was dropped. The various 
exigencies which prevented action omthis appropriation bill and also 
prevented the securing of a like appropriation in an emergency defi¬ 
ciency bill before the 4th of March were due to post-war conditions in 
Congress which affected all legislation. 
No hearings on the Agricultural Appropriation Bill for 1917-20 
were held by the succeeding Congress but the Secretary of Agri¬ 
culture submitted a memorandum recommending that both the item 
for $25,000 for the Bureau of Entomology and the special item of 
$500,000 for control work be included. As eventually passed by the 
succeeding Congress, July 24, 1919, the bill carried the appropriation 
originally requested, of $25,000, and a special appropriation of 
$250,000. These two appropriations are now carrying on the work. 
The most, therefore, that could have been gained by an immediate 
action of Congress would have been an availability of this fund for 
work in 1919 prior to the season for planting crops, the same sort 
of work which was actuallv conducted under state funds over much 
of the area with results which have already been discussed. It is 
utterly illogical to represent that the insect spread over all the new 
area now known to be invaded because Congress did not immediately 
give $500,000. The facts are as already indicated that the spread 
of the insect has been a slow ten-year process and there is nothing 
to indicate that the spread of 1919 was essentially more rapid than 
it had been during the previous year or years. 
Our position with respect to this appropriation, I think, has perhaps 
been sufficiently set forth. We could not with our information ask 
Congress for huge sums for exterminative work which we believed to 
be impracticable and impossible. We could and did represent to 
Congress that we had here a new corn pest that had shown enough 
