Rural School Leaflet 



879 



INSECT STUDY 

 The Editor 



[HE study of economic entomology is iin- 

 portant in all fann communities. The 

 interest is increased when the relation 

 of insect life to plant and animal life is 

 taught. 

 A good piece of work for the year would 

 be to have the children try to find out which is the 

 most injurious insect in the neighborhood. In con- 

 nection with language work, encourage them to write letters to the State 

 College of Agriculture, to the Experiment Station at Geneva, and to the 

 Department of Agriculture at Washington, in order to get all information 

 possible regarding the insect they are studying. 



The work on insects given in the New York State Syllabus is in three 

 groups: For special study, the potato beetle and the lady beetle. For 

 recognition, the tent caterpillar, honeybee, ant, hornet, and spider. (Lessons 

 on the honeybee, ant, and hornet were given last year, and a copy of the 

 September leaflet for 1 9 1 1 will be sent to any teacher who did not receive 

 one.) The third group includes one biting and one sucking insect, for 

 which we have selected the cabbage butterfly and the plant louse. The 

 latter is valuable for study this year, since the lady beetle is the insect 

 given for special work and it destroys many aphids, or plant lice. This 

 will give the teacher an opportunity to discuss a beneficial insect and an 

 injurious insect at the same time. 



THE COLORADO POTATO BEETLE 



Glenn W. Herrick 



The writer recalls the early days of the " potato bug " in New York 

 State and the tedious method of knocking it off the vines into pans of 

 kerosene. Its advent as a pest on potatoes caused a good deal of con- 

 sternation and as much discussion as has the San Jose scale insect on fruit 

 trees. This beetle migrated from its original home in Colorado, where 

 it lived on a wild plant of the potato family, and gradually worked its 

 way eastward from field to field of potatoes until, in 1S72, it had reached 

 New York. Now it is probably the inost familiar insect pest on the average 

 fann. It is no longer seriously dreaded, although it still has to be fought. 

 It not only destroys the vines and lessens the yield of tubers, but actually 

 affects the quality of the potatoes. Where these beetles are abundant on 

 the vines the potatoes arc likely to be watery and of poor quality. 



