42 



Agriculture, Professor Bruner under Professor Riley's instructions ; and I think it is no 

 exaggeration to say that at least $400,000 have been actually saved in hard cash on this 

 year's crop, not to speak of the enormous loss which would most probably have followed 

 next year had they been left alone, and had climatic conditions been favorable for their 

 increase. 



The amount of damage done to crops every year is so vast that the figures excite in- 

 credulity from those who do not study crop statistics. The agricultural products of the 

 United States are estimated at about $3,800,000,000. Of this it is thought that about 

 cue-tenth is lost by the ravages of insects. This is in many cases unnecessary. In short 

 a sum of $380,000,000 is given up without a mui-mur and almost without a struggle by 

 the people of the ITnited States. 



Crops of all kinds are injured, and simple remedies are known for many of the 

 attacks and are more or less adopted. Some have already come into general use. Paris 

 green is now applied to potato fields almost as much as a matter of course, as manure is to 

 fertilize the soil. As an instance of how a saving may be made even in well-established 

 methods, I give the following : Through the work of Mr. W. B. Alwood, of the Virginia 

 experiment station, improved machinery and the water mixtures of poisons have come 

 into general use amongst the farmers and potato-growers in the Norfolk region, and some 

 of the largest growers now claim that they at present do for from $40 to $60 what used 

 to cost them from $500 to $600. To-day in California and Florida, orange trees are 

 universally treated with kerosene and resin emulsions or poisonous gas for scale insects. 



In the treatment of cabbage caterpillars, pyrethrum diluted with four times its 

 weight of common flour, and then kept tightly closed for 24 hours, leaves nothing to be 

 desired, and thousands of dollars are yearly saved to small growers who most need the 

 assistance. 



Many excellent remedies have been devised by a mere modification of existing agri- 

 cultural methods. Instances of thase are found in the early and late sowing or harvesting 

 of some crops, as sowing turnips between the broods of the turnip flea-beetle, the late 

 planting of cabbage for the root maggot, the late sowing of wheat for the Hessian fly, 

 etc. In the 1879 report of the U. S. Department of Agriculture was first detailed the 

 only succes.sful method of treating the clover-seed midge by cutting or feeding off the 

 first crop before the young larvie are sufiiciently matured to leave the heads and go into 

 the ground to pupate. This was simply the change of one week, by which not only 

 is the insect destroyed, but the clover is saved in better condition than under the 

 old method. 



During the present summt;r Professor Osborn has discovered that a serious pest of 

 the clover plant, Grapholitlta inter stlnctana, a small moth, may be destroyed in all its 

 stages by simply stacking the hay soon after it is cut. 



In the Southern States Mr. Howard Evarts Weed writes to me with regard to the 

 cotton worm : " The loss would indeed be great were it not for the fact that the planters 

 keep it in check by the prompt application of Paris green in a diy form. The only method 

 now used is to apply it by means of two sacks attached to a pole and borne through the 

 plantation by a negro mounted on a mule who rides down the rows of plants. This 

 gives perfect satisfaction, and the farmers of the state tell me that they want no better 

 remedy for this insect." 



Mr. F. W. Mally writes on the same subject : " The benefit which the public generally 

 derives from the researches of economic entomologists is well illustrated by the result of 

 the cotton- worm investigation published in the Fourth Report of the U. S. Entomological 

 Commission. In that report estimates of damage, etc., are given, and I will only allude 

 to the benetit which the planters have derived from the report. Formerly, planters 

 waited until the August brood of the Aletia issued and depredated on their cotton. This 

 brood may be called the migratory one, since it spreads over vast areas of cotton fields. 

 At that time, too, the planters used Paris green just as they purchased it from the dealers. 

 They have now been educated to know that the Aletia propagates in certain quite well- 



