October, ’20] 
SMITH: CORN BORER AND BROOM CORN 
429 
and Newport News, Va. Of this 600-ton importation more than 2,775 
bales were received in Chicago between February 23 and March 2, 1910, 
whence it was sold in job lots as follows: 80 per cent of same to the 
some thirty manufacturing plants located in Chicago and its suburbs, 
and the remainder to establishments in Indianapolis, Ind., Milwaukee, 
Wis., Dubuque, Iowa, Toronto, Ontario, Montreal, Quebec, and 
numerous other points in the United States of which no definite record 
was obtainable. 
It is apparent from the foregoing statement that the shipments of 
broom corn, which thus far it has been possible to trace, account for 
not more than one-third of the total tonnage of broom corn imported 
into the United States since 1909, as shown in the report of the Depart¬ 
ment of Commerce, and that the states to which it was shipped are as 
follows: Massachusetts, New York, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, 
Wisconsin, and Iowa. 
Foreign literature dealing with Pyrausta nubilalis Hubn. apparently 
does not make specific note of this insect as being a serious enemy of 
broom corn in southern and central Europe, although it is well known as 
a serious pest of maize in that country. However, since it is known to 
infest broom corn under field conditions in Massachusetts and has fed 
voraciously upon that plant in the laboratory, it no doubt infests 
broom corn as grown in Austria-Hungary. 
Our investigations to date made in the United States at a great 
many of the points where Hungarian broom corn is known to have been 
received for manufacture have failed to discover its presence except 
in the vicinity of Boston, Mass., Amsterdam, and Buffalo, N. Y. 
Hence, it seems a very significant fact that the three existing infested 
areas in Massachusetts and New York, as originally located, were in 
each instance within reasonably short distances of broom factories. 
In so far as the hemp theory is concerned, it will be recalled that it 
was based on the fact that the first located infestation in Massachusetts 
was not far from the Charlestown Navy Yard where considerable 
amounts of raw hemp are used in the manufacture of rope. At the 
same time, however, importations originating from identical sources 
were being made at Plymouth, Mass., some forty miles south, and at 
Andover, Mass., approximately twenty-five miles north of Charles¬ 
town, and yet no infestations of the European corn borer in the vicinity 
of either of the two latter places were discovered until the summer of 
1919. This situation gives rise to a very considerable doubt as to the 
validity of the hemp theory in its relation to the original Massachu¬ 
setts infestation, and would appear to indicate the greater possibility 
of broom corn used at the Everett factory as being the vehicle in which 
the pest reached this country. Assuming that the broom corn im- 
