86 
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 13 
damage in Massachusetts to indicate its importance and that we 
wanted sufficient funds to determine such importance and whether it 
could be controlled and incidentally if there was any possibility of 
extermination, and that we wanted to take quarantine action to pre¬ 
vent spread. To accomplish this general purpose we inaugurated a 
program of survey work which has now been stopped by the winter 
but to be renewed with increased vigor next season. Then we wanted 
to test the possibility of intensive control in an area large enough to 
make the results significant. This project is now being carried out in 
an area including half a dozen townships in Massachusetts. When 
this area was selected, it was a section running from the outer 
border of the infestation inward so that it would be a real clean¬ 
up as far as it went. It is true that later discoveries of distri¬ 
bution have made this area more or less central but the methods 
which are being developed and the results which we hope to gain 
will be valuable as indicating, the possibilities of such intensive 
control. No one imagines for a moment that we are going to 
exterminate the corn borer in that area—that is, anyone who 
really appreciates what extermination demands. 
In concluding, I wish to repeat and emphasize what I said at the 
beginning that as technical men with reputations worth keeping, and if 
we expect to be listened to and to have our opinions given any weight, 
we have got to keep away from ungrounded theory and make our 
recommendations in terms of common sense. In other words, steer 
clear of what anyone will recognize as impracticable and hold only to 
what can be shown to be possible of reasonable accomplishment. We 
have got to have intelligent basis for our recommendations and we 
believe that such basis can be obtained by an additional appropriation 
at this time of $500,000 which with the other funds available will 
make $775,000 for the corn borer for the seasons of 1919 and 1920. 
If the results of this work, which we look upon as fundamental and 
necessary for the right appraisement of the problem, should indicate 
the need of larger appropriations, we will then be in position to intel¬ 
ligently present such need to Congress. 
' Mr. E. D. Ball: I have been very much interested in the two dis¬ 
cussions of the corn borer, and also very much interested in what I saw 
of it in the fields, but it seems to me that what we need now is a funda¬ 
mental viewpoint in this matter. This is either an injurious insect 
which is going to be more or less of a menace to the corn crop, or else 
it is not. If it is not an insect that is going to do any injury to the 
corn crop, and is not a menace, then neither the states nor the govern¬ 
ment is warranted in putting any money up to fight it. If it is an 
injurious insect every possible effort should be made to control it 
