No Flies on Iowa?

Corn-rich Iowa is also rich in flies. They rise in clouds from manure heaps, byproducts of feeding hogs and cattle. This spring Iowa will mount an offensive against its flies, aiming to make the state as flyless as the moon.

The program, headed by the state's agricultural and health authorities, will take on all the trappings of a civic crusade. Local chambers of commerce, boards of health, Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs will march on the flies in close ranks. In northern Iowa a mechanized column of 40 former G.I.s is training with pressure spray outfits. They plan to hit Mason City on June 9, DDT-ing the whole town fly-less in two hours by the clock.

Toxic ammo of the anti-fly movement is good new DDT, which will be sprayed on cattle, barns, downtown restaurants, garbage pails, old-fashioned outhouses. But the state authorities warn that DDT alone will not make Iowa flyless. Flies breed in any sort of decaying organic matter. Eggs hatch and adult flies develop in about eight days. DDT will kill flies, but only strict sanitation will keep the fly reserves from mounting a counteroffensive.

Spread It Thin. Manure heaps, one of the mushy pillars of Iowa's fertility, are a difficult problem. The crusaders will urge farmers to spread the manure thinly on the fields every three to six days. This maneuver should baffle the flies.

Last year the city of Ames had a local campaign of its own, headed by Dr. Harold Gunderson of Iowa State College. Ames sprayed and scrubbed itself into almost utter flylessness. In the stores, the hanging ribbons of flypaper, usually black with entangled prey, remained naked all summer, or were thrown away.

Dr. Gunderson thinks that the statewide campaign will cost nearly half a million dollars for DDT alone. But freedom from flies will make livestock fatten faster, increase the milk yield, improve public health. "Besides," he says, "what's a man's Sunday morning sleep worth to him when there's a fly in the room?"

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