ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED | OCTOBER 5, 1940 | CANADIAN COUNTRYMAN
The season of corn harvest is again at hand, and apparently we have quite an increase in corn borer infestation.
It is probable that weather conditions prevailing during the growing season will be blamed for this increase in borers. However, here is one farmer who believes that weather conditions are not the only cause of increased damage by this voracious insect. In many districts one sees evidence of laxity in the enforcement of the Corn Borer Act.
I have seen fields with almost one-third of the corn stubble lying on top of the ground after spring-seeding operations had been completed. On some farms corn stalks are allowed to become mixed with straw and litter, and the whole mass left lying in the barnyard until midsummer.
The farmer who fails to plow under his corn stubble is usually looked upon as being very delinquent. But is he a great deal worse than the farmer who carefully plows corn stubble under in the fall, and then tears half of it up again in the spring? Or is he much worse than the farmer who fails to burn, at the proper time, all corn stalks and other corn refuse that is lying about his premises?
It is the duty of those officials who have the responsibility of enforcing the Corn Borer Act to “crack down” on a few of those careless corn growers. Let them know that we have at least one law on the statute books that has teeth in it. If the Corn Borer Act were enforced to the limit, the damage done by borers in a year of normal weather conditions would be negligible.
Middlesex Co.
DISSATISFIED CORN GROWER.