EDITORIAL. 
acid (95-98 per cent.) that has been recovered during the past year 
has been about 78 per cent. of the total availabie. The amount of 
gas evolved by the pot or portable generator is estimated at 90 per 
cent. of the total available gas. During 1918, so the latest reports indi- 
cate, 75 per cent. of the gas from a given amount of cyanide in the 
liquid form was made to cover the same ground as 90 per cent. from 
the same amount by the ordinary methods of generation. hus, while 
there has been a discrepancy of 10 or 15 per cent. in the actual amount 
of gas used through the liquid method, the results in the field have not 
indicated any important difference on the scale insects experimented 
with. Information regarding the physical and chemical properties of 
liquid hydrocyanic acid in the meantime is being accumulated at 
the Agricultural Experimental Station of the University of California, 
and it is confidently anticipated that the yield in the future will be 
equal to, or even greater, than that now obtained from portable 
generators. 
EUROPEAN CORN BORER. 
The maize-growing industry of United States of America has 
for some time been threatened by the Kuropean Corn Borer (Pyrausta 
nubilalis), which has obtained more than a foothold in one or two 
important corn States, but the expenditure of large sums of money 
and the rigid enforcement of quarantine restrictions has, up to the 
present, prevented the rapid spread of the pest. For the last two or 
three years the United States Bureau of Entomology has been advocat- 
ing most thorough repressive measures, and the agricultural and tech- 
nical press has been urging the strictest precautions. Failure on ‘the 
part of the Federal Government to follow the advice of its scientific 
officers has not only negatived the splendid work already done, but: it 
has involved the growers in severe losses, and has enormously increased 
the work to be done. In a report recently issued by Dr. Howard, Chief 
Officer of the Bureau of Entomology, he states that much good work was 
done in 1918 in preventing the extension of the borer in 1918, mainly 
under State appropriations; but, in 1919, the requisite Federal appro- 
priation was not granted, with the result that, by August, the moth had 
spread over an area of 1,000 square miles. Other publications to hand of 
recent date refer to a conference held at Albany and Boston to prepare a 
scheme for the extermination of the borer. This conference was held 
by the National Association of Commissioners of Agriculture, and it 
passed a resolution that the most energetic efforts on the part of the 
Federal and State agencies should be made to control, and, if possible, 
exterminate the pest, including rigorous quarantines to prevent its 
distribution. It was urged that Congress should make an appropriation 
of 4,000,000 dollars for the current year to carry out this work, and for 
this purpose a committee was suggested, representing the Comniissioners 
of Agriculture, official entomologists, and the Plant Pest Committee. 
POTATO WART UNDER CONTROL. 
In the war against potato wart, the United States has done in less 
than two years what other countries.had not succeeded in doing in 
decades. Wart has been for a long time a destructive disease of potatoes 
in Europe, and the belief always was that, once a garden or field 
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