220 ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY. 



turn our fields and our gardens into barren wildernesses ? Had 

 our hop-growers perceived the truth of this, and persistently 

 and patiently fostered by every means in their power the 

 settlement in their gardens, and the increase, of aphis-eating 

 insects, such as the Lady-birds {Coccinelltdce), they would have 

 largely mitigated, if not entirely prevented, the almost incal- 

 culable losses they have suffered from the so-called " black 

 blights," which, instead, have become of increasing frequency 

 during the past fifty years. The great loss caused by the ravages 

 of aphides alone to hop-planters and the whole community may 

 be well brought home to us by the following facts and figures : — 



In 1882 a serious blight occurred throughout the hop-growing 

 districts of England, causing a reduction of the average produc- 

 tion from 7 cwts. per acre to less than if cwts. Now, as in that 

 year the hop acreage was about 65,600 acres, the total yield of 

 which was under 115,000 cwts. instead of 460,000 cwts., it follows 

 that the loss on the crop was about 345,000 cwts., which, taken at 

 the average price of hops for the preceding twenty years {;£'] 7s. 

 per cwt), amounts to over ^,^2, 500, 000 sterling loss in that year 

 to the cultivators alone. But it was not they alone who directly 

 suffered for it. It is estimated that not more than ;^i 50,000 

 was paid that season for the picking of the crop, while had it 

 been an average one, the cost of picking would have amounted 

 to nearly ^^400,000. So nearly a quarter of a million sterling 

 was lost to the labourers in that one season. What an amount 

 of misery is expressed in these figures ! 



A few facts concerning our apple-orchards may further serve to 

 justify my claim for the economic importance of my subject. 

 There are in England, according to recent agricultural statistics, 

 at least 250,000 acres under fruit cultivation, of which by far the 

 larger part is occupied by apple-orchards, forming a very important 

 item in the crops of many districts in Devon, Somerset, Hereford- 

 shire, and Kent. Now, the apple, amongst its many enemies, 

 suffers from the attacks of two little moths and their caterpillars — 

 the small Ermine moth ( Hyponomenta -badelld) and the Codlin 

 moth ( Corpocapsa po7no}idla). The former, in the years 1865 and 

 1887, entirely devastated whole orchards throughout Kent and 

 also the West of England. Hundreds of acres of orchards were 



