FIGHTING INSECT PESTS 265 



When 1 was a boy on the farm I looked forward eagerly to the fall 

 months when sweet cider was plentiful on the farm. How good that 

 cider tasted! It was far better than the cider made today, and richer. 

 The common cider today has a lot of water in it. Over the hills to the 

 southward from our farm were three brothers, enterprising farmers, who 

 owned a cider-mill. One notable thing about this cider-mill was that no 

 farmer could get any cider from this mill. If he delivered his apples to 

 the mill he was paid for them in cash, but not in cider. These brothers 

 had a reputation for making high grade cider, which was not sold locally 

 but which was barreled and shipped to distant cities. It is said that 

 the brothers had some mysterious method of clarifying the cider, but I 

 suspect that they not only clarified it in a superior manner, but that they 

 were more cleanly and systematic in the selection of varieties and in 

 sorting out the decayed fruit, and in other ways took great pains to 

 secure a high grade of cider. 



COOPERATION IN FIGHTING INSECT PESTS. 

 By Geo. P. Weldon in Fruit Belt. 



The man who puts forth his best efforts in trying to control insect 

 pests, with only partial success, is apt to blame the negligent neighbor 

 because he did not meet with better success. While it is sometimes 

 true that the individual can protect his own crops, regardless of what 

 his neighbor does, it is more often true that he can not meet with the 

 greatest success unless his neighbor adopts proper methods of control also. 



Most of our destructive insect pests travel freely from place to place, 

 and the work of only one farmer fighting certain of them may lessen the 

 whole number an inappreciable amount, and do neither himself nor his 

 neighbors any permanent good. 



The grasshopper is a good illustration of a pest of this type. They 

 sometimes travel great distances, the limit depending upon how far they 

 have to go to find food. While one may destroy practically all the hoppers 

 over a certain area, by putting out poison early in the season, his land is 

 likely to become reinfested from adjacent ai-eas unprotected by poison 

 before the end of the season. 



Only a few days ago I was talking with a nurseryman who had met 

 with splendid success in poisoning grasshoppers with bran and Paris 

 green, in his young nursery. The poisonous mixture was scattered about 

 the field early in the season, just as the hopper eggs were hatching. 

 This particular nursery was fortunately enough located so that neigh- 

 boring hoppers did not come into it in large numbers. The nurseryman, 

 however, made the statement that he would not dread grasshoppers any 

 more himself because he felt sure he could keep them down pretty well 

 on his own land, but that he did feel uneasy for his own safety when 

 neighbors who had as good a chance as he to proctect themselves were 

 negligent and did nothing. 



