426 
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 13 
“This is a good time to give the theory we have. We believe 
that you had the corn borer here in Massachusetts two years, perhaps, 
before we. We think there were no corn borers in the state of New 
York previous to seven or eight years ago, probably ten. We do know 
that about eight years ago broom corn was imported from Austria and 
taken into the city of Amsterdam where it was manufactured into 
brooms, and the waste from the factory was thrown out, given away 
and scattered along the Mohawk River. Now, the prevailing winds 
are mostly from the West. Scouting so far has revealed about ten 
miles west of the city of Amsterdam in a narrow valley of the Mohawk 
River the presence of corn borer but very slightly, but ten miles going 
down from Amsterdam to Mohawk for a distance of ten miles there is a 
strip about a mile wide on both sides of the river down to the city of 
Scotia. My theory is that waste from the infested section in Amster¬ 
dam was distributed either by the northwesterly winds or with the 
floods. We had floods that covered hundreds of acres just west of 
Schenectady. That is where we have the thickest part of our infesta¬ 
tion. We fully believe that the introduction of broom corn at Amster¬ 
dam was responsible for the presence of the insect. As far as the 
spread of the insect in New York is concerned we have been unable to 
find anything east of the Hudson River.” 
As a result of Mr. Atwood’s statement, the records of importation 
of broom corn were looked up. The following data showing the 
amounts and the origin of the broom corn imported into the United 
States for the years 1909 to 1918, inclusive, have been compiled from 
the report of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Depart¬ 
ment of Commerce: 
Year 
Country 
Tons 
1909. 
. Austria-Hungary 
1,097 
Germany 
601 
Italy 
181 
1910:. 
. Austria-Hungary 
3,007 
Belgium 
2 
England 
1 
France 
1,574 
Germany 
67 
Italy 
2,213 
The Netherlands 
90 
Russia in Europe 
53 
Turkey in Europe 
382 
1911. 
. Austria-Hungary 
425 
Belgium 
9 
Germany 
52 
Italy 
89 
Roumania 
21 
Russia in Europe 
7 
Turkey in Europe 
13 
