30 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



tious than to see our choice plants cut down by some destruc- 

 tive vermin that spring into existence as if by the sudden bid- 

 ding of Omnipotence. Scarcely do our young squashes show 

 themselves above the ground, than the striped bug appears and 

 gorges himself on their tender leaves. We sift on some 

 plaster, and congratulate ourselves that the plants are saved, 

 when we find a creature on them more disgusting than any 

 substance we can apply to drive him away. 



We place a shingle in the hill, and by carefully watching every 

 morning, and crushing every squash bug with a stone, our vines 

 are at last free from bugs and in the full tide of luxuriant 

 growth. We feel sure of a crop ; but some fine day we see the 

 vines begin to turn yellow and droop ; we examine and find a 

 worm in the stem against whose ravages we are helpless. We 

 see our vines wither away one by one, imtil our plants and 

 expectations of a plentiful crop are dead together. 



And so almost every crop we raise has one or more insect- 

 enemies. What the canker-worm leaves the caterpillar eats ; 

 and if we protect our trees — as we may — against these crawling 

 abominations, the curculio and codling moth attack the fruit, 

 and it drops before half grown. 



The flea and the cut-worm eat the young cabbages ; and the 

 white grub cuts the roots from the strawberry, while we helplessly 

 look on and see the plants wither away ; the currant worm de- 

 prives us of one of our most delicious summer fruits ; the Eu- 

 ropean cabbage worm has made its appearance, and we are told 

 that we can neither prevent its ravages or make use of the plant 

 after it has been tunnelled by this destroyer ; and worst of all 

 we are assured that the Colorado bug is steadily and surely mak- 

 ing its way eastward, bringing with it ruin and destruction to 

 the potato. 



What purpose these destructive insects serve in the great plan 

 of the universe is a puzzling mystery which may well be classed 

 with the other great questions of "good and ill, foreknowledge 

 and free fate," which puzzled the fallen angels. 



It is gratifying to know that the same Hand that sends the 

 bane sends the antidote. These insects not only have number- 

 less enemies among the birds and other insects, but they all have 

 their parasites by whose energies they are swept away, when 

 they become too numerous for endurance. 



