SAVE US FROM INVADING PESTS 



BY J. G. SANDERS, ' 

 ECONOMIC ZOOLOGIST OF PENNSYLVANIA 



THE majority of our citizens should be so well informed 

 regarding the pernicious practices which now ob- 

 tain in the United States, whereby an open door is 

 maintained for the introduction of immense quantities of 

 infested and infected plant material, that argument for 

 the limitation of this e\'il would be unnecessary. But I 

 have eminent reasons to believe that not all who are in- 

 terested in the proinotion and maintenance of agiicultural 

 and horticultural health have fully sensed the present 



These foregoing statements are prcliminar}' to a re- 

 cital of needed forms of defense against enemies of plants, 

 which are threatening the food product possibilities of our 



AVOCADO WEEVIL 



The Avocado Weevil seriously injures Avocado seed in Mexico and Central 

 America and has been frequently detected in seed from these regions. To 

 protect the Avocado interests the Federal Horticultural Board has quarantined 

 all seed from Me.^ico and Central America. 



pitiful condition of these interests in our country, nor do 

 I think all of us realize the many dangers which threaten 

 our welfare with every shipload of foreign plants dis- 

 charged on our shores. 



If every teacher and student of the practical sciences, 

 and every member of our many agricultural experiment 

 stations were fully cognizant of the his- 

 tory of plant pest introduction 

 into America, and of the untold millions 

 lost annually through their ravages, it 

 would seem that sufficient publicity could 

 be given the facts to awaken careless 

 America to remedial action. I have 

 used the expression "careless America" 

 advisedly yet truthfully. We Americans 

 are subjects of derision by foreign nations, 

 on account of carelessness in many 

 phases of our national and economic life. 

 Our coasts are inadequately guarded 

 from human invasion, aided by power- 

 ful machines of war, and there is but 

 little doubt that charts and plans of 

 many of our coast defenses, and lull 

 reports of our vulnerable seacoast are 

 reposing in the vaults of foreign nations. 



LATE BLIGHT OF THE POTATO 0.\ THE LEAVES A.XD THE TUBER 

 ROT WHICH FOLLOWS IT 



This is one of the most serious of all potato diseases. It is almost constantly 

 present in the humid North of both Europe and America and was the direct 

 cause of the famous Irish famine. The disease is readily controlled by Bordeaux 

 mixture. 



country, just as surely as similar enemies in the past have 

 entered and attacked our agriculture and horliculture. 

 destroying each year several times the total annual ap- 

 propriations for our army and nav>-. As the speed of 

 ocean travel lessens the transportation period and in- 

 creases the frequency and facility of shipments from abroad 

 we cannot expect a diminution of the danger of plant pest 



SPREAD OF THE BOLL WEEVIL 



The lines show the progress year by year of the boll weevil which has already done millions of 



dollars' damage to cotton. 



147 



