238 Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



Beautiful and interesting as they are, the whole family 

 of butterflies, moths and millers, are enemies and pests. 

 The family is large, five thousand species being known, and 

 nearly one thousand having their homes with us. All sub- 

 sist on vegetation. In early spring the cut worms attend 

 promply and thoroughly to the newly planted grain, lint 

 caterpillar, canker w^orm, army worm, and hundreds of 

 others are ready for all foliage almost as soon as it bursts 

 from the buds, and the season closes with the big fat worms 

 found here and there, late in autumn making special efforts 

 to consume all that is left. One species in all this family is 

 useful — the silk worm, these are found by careful observa- 

 tion to consume during their lives, over eight thousand times 

 their primitive weight; this gives some idea of the food con- 

 sumed by all. Could it all be weighed and measured how- 

 would it compare with that consumed by our flocks and 

 herds? 



To combat these would be simply impossible were it not 

 for the helps which nature gives. Many parasites are doing 

 their work. 



Birds are our great helpers., and we accomplish something 

 by poisonous applications, judicious change of crops, plow- 

 ing at seasonable times, etc. 



About our dwellings or crops especially subject to injury, 

 something is accomplished by lamps set in broad pans with 

 an inch or two of water and a little oil on its surface; burn 

 these from early twilight till daybreak and you will be 

 astonished at what is caught. Many species are nocturnal 

 and can thus be greatly diminished. 



Favorite hiding places for many are lumber piles, or 

 under rubbish laying about promiscuously, therefore the more 

 tidy things are kept the fewer and further away will be 

 these neighbors. 



By all means encourage and protect the birds; whatever 

 sins they commit in fruit stealing, we may be sure that 

 without them we would have no fruit to gather, for the 

 worms would destroy it all. 



Among some eight thousand species of beetles or bugs 

 we have both enemies and friends. Enemies that spoil our 



