February, 20] 
BALL: EUROPEAN CORN BORER 
87 
because we know enough about it to know that it will be difficult or 
impossible for the farmer to fight it. 
We have heard today that it is an injurious insect and we have 
heard that it is not an injurious insect. Our friend from Indiana who 
went down and looked over the situation reported that it did no 
damage, and then he went back to Indiana and recommended that they 
put on a strong quarantine for fear it would get into Indiana. (Laugh¬ 
ter.) That was one of the most beautiful pieces of contradiction that 
I ever saw in American literature. 
We heard conflicting stories at the Boston meeting as we are hearing 
them today but we saw enough of its damage to be satisfied that if 
this insect gets into our canning regions, and apparently it is driving 
in that direction, it will put a very great damper on the canning indus¬ 
try. The corn worm is bad enough, but it comes in from the outside 
and you can see it and cut it out, but a worm that bores into the stalk 
and up into the ear from the inside will do more damage. Three or 
four caterpillars ground up and turned out in a can of corn will not 
make a very desirable dish. 
If we have determined that it is an insect that will do an appreciable 
amount of damage then we want to know whether it is possible to 
fight it in any way? Can its spread be stopped? The question of 
spread is a matter of great importance. What you do this year is 
worth ten times what you do ten years from now or five years from 
now. (Applause.) While I recognize the value of thorough and 
extensive scouting, we know that the history of every effective piece of 
control work along these lines in this country has been a history of 
scouting followed up immediately by action. Of what value is all of 
the scouting that you can possibly do in the whole United States if it 
is not to be followed by anything else? The fact remains today that 
the state of Massachusetts and the state of New York in good faith 
put up $100,000 or more apiece to undertake to hold this thing in 
check and to eradicate it; that up to the present time the United States 
government has not spent a dollar nor done anything that is intended 
to prevent the corn borer from spreading to the great corn district of 
the west. The only money they have spent on eradication or control 
is being spent inside the infested area in Massachusetts which is of no 
value in holding it from the west. 
We of the corn belt are interested primarily in the western extension 
and spread of this insect into New York and Pennsylvania, because if 
it is to be kept out of the corn belt, there is the place to spend the 
money first. If they can make a success of eradicating that slightly 
infested area, then they might be warranted in spending money in 
Massachusetts. If they cannot make a success of that, then there is 
