Checking the Waste: A Study in Conservation

by Mary Huston Gregory

Hay, clover, and alfalfa have their enemies which destroy a considerable part of the crops. The locusts and caterpillars, the army-worms and cutworms are the best known, but the tiny leaf-hoppers, which spring up at every step as we walk across the path or lawn, and the web-worms and grass-worms and grubs which work about the roots of the plants all do their part in lowering the production.

The principal insect enemies of cotton are the cotton boll-weevil, the boll-worm, the cotton red spider, and the cotton-leaf worm. The control of the boll-weevil is considered one of the most serious problems confronting the agricultural men of the country. In the first years after its introduction, it reduced the cotton crop fully fifty per cent., and was the cause, not only of serious loss to the farmers, but of the closing of the cotton mills in New England, of a scarcity of cotton cloth and a decided rise in its price. The boll-weevil is a beetle about a quarter of an inch in length. This little beetle eats into the heart of each boll, which soon falls to the ground.

The cotton-leaf worm formerly caused heavy damage, as much as $20,000,000 to $30,000,000 a year, but the loss has been greatly reduced by the war which farmers have waged against it. It is still estimated at from $5,000,000 to $10,000,000.

The boll-worm is chiefly destructive in the Southwest and does damage to the extent of $12,000,000.

All in all no article of commerce is more seriously affected by insect ravages than cotton, on account of its necessity, and the fact that it can be raised only in certain regions.

Tobacco is one of the principal crops in several states and it suffers heavily from insect damage. The large, showy tobacco-worm and the tiny tobacco-thrips cause serious injury to the leaves.

Sugar-cane has its insect enemies which take on an average one stalk out of every ten raised in this country, and reduce the crop in the same proportion.

The cranberry is another valuable commercial plant that has been greatly affected by an insect known as the cranberry fruit worm, but by spraying, growers have been able to reduce the damage from sixty per cent. down to fourteen per cent.

Garden vegetables suffer more than anything else from insects. Potatoes are attacked by two species of insects, both destructive unless held in check. One is the reddish brown blister-beetle. The eggs are laid on the ground, and do not become adult insects until the second year. The other is the striped Colorado beetle, the eggs of which are laid on the under side of the leaves, and develop into adults in a short time. Two broods of this beetle develop in a single season. Thus it may be seen that the two are entirely different, though they are often supposed to be the same. The Colorado beetle, by the immense damage it was doing to a necessary food crop, first led to a regular method of fighting insects in this country. This potato-bug is not feared as it was in the past, since farmers have learned to control it in a great measure, but they have only been able to lessen the evil, never to drive it out completely.

Other insects that destroy garden vegetables are the well-known green cabbage-worm, the harlequin cabbage-bug, the cabbage hairworm, the asparagus-beetle, the squash-bug, the squash-vine borer, the striped cucumber or melon beetle, the melon aphis, the corn boll-worm, the cornstalk borer and many others.