638 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



telligent and industrious enumerators working from ten to twelve 

 hours a day were not able to average a daily wage of more than 

 two dollars each, out of which they had to provide a team and to 

 pay its expenses and their own while away from their homes. 

 Under such conditions it is not impossible that some of the less 

 conscientious enumerators may have slighted remote corners of 

 their districts. As the complaint of the inadequacy of the pay 

 was quite general, and entirely justifiable, it is possible that there 

 were considerable omissions in many rural neighborhoods. 



AN AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION. 



By Prof. CLARENCE M. WEED. 



DURING the last half-century the agriculturists of the United 

 States have constantly suffered from the attacks of two 

 classes of organisms, which have disputed with them the posses- 

 sion of their crops. These organisms are, first, the noxious in- 

 sects ; and, second, the parasitic fungi. To these tiny foes Amer- 

 ican agriculture yields annually many million dollars' worth of 

 her choicest products. They form an omnipresent host of tax- 

 gatherers, taking possession of the farmer's crops and enforcing 

 their onerous demands without process of law, unless preventive 

 measures are vigorously prosecuted. They are no respecters of 

 persons : like the rain, they fall upon the fields of both the just 

 and the unjust. 



The authorities best able to judge have estimated the annual 

 loss in the United States due to these little pests at more than 

 half a billion dollars. Noxious insects, according to Dr. C. V. 

 Riley, the distinguished entomologist of our National Department 

 of Agriculture, occasion losses in the United States which are 

 " in the aggregate enormous, and have been variously estimated 

 at from $300,000,000 to $400,000,000 annually," and parasitic fungi 

 — the rusts, smuts, blights, mildews, rots, and similar maladies of 

 growing plants — according to competent authorities, cause an 

 equal or greater loss. In single States and single seasons the 

 damage is often frightful in extent. During some of the great 

 chinch-bug epidemics the loss in Illinois occasioned by this one 

 insect has amounted to over $73,000,000 a year ; and in seasons not 

 marked by an outbreak of such a great crop pest the injury is 

 much more severe than is ordinarily supposed. The official ento- 

 mologist of the State just named, Prof. S. A. Forbes — after years 

 of careful field observation and statistical study — has recently ex- 

 pressed his belief that " the insects of the State of Illinois derive 



