19£1] The Age of Insects 37 



Crop 1920 Value 



in N. C. 



Corn $110,480,000 



Tobacco 97,130,000 



Cotton 68,750,000 



Hay 35,000,000 



Truck garden and crop 77,500,000 



Wheat 20,000,000 



Fruit 50,000,000 



Forage 48,000,000 



Animal and Animal Products 200,000,000 



Forests 20,000,000 



Stored Products 40,000,000 



Enough to pay our $50,000,000 road bill and have enough left in one 

 year to pay the ill fated $20,000,000 six year program for our institu- 

 tions of higher education with a paltry $14,750,000 left. But I fear 

 that most of us are not in the habit of dealing in millions of dollars and 

 that these figures make very little impression on us. Perhaps it would 

 be easier if we look at this as a tax. As a tax this means more than 

 $40 for every man, woman and child in our state annually. Certainly 

 more than the average tax for all purposes, state, city, county and 

 town. Or let us look at it in another way. An observant entomolo- 

 gist will tell you that in the average year our crops suffer anywhere 

 from 5 per cent to 30 per cent depreciation from the attacks of insects. 

 Some crops suffering much more than others. This means that our 

 farmers pay a tax each year of from five cents to thirty cents on each 

 dollar's worth of crop value, a tax that would not be tolerated if it 

 were levied by any political unit, national, state or county or for any 

 purpose be it good roads, better schools or what not. 



Yet this tax is levied so insidiously that we in the experiment sta- 

 tion never hear about it and never know anything about it except by 

 direct personal observation, save when insects destroy 75 per cent, 

 95 per cent or 100 per cent of the crop which happens time and time 

 again sometimes to isolated farmers, sometimes to practically all of the 

 farmers growing any given crop. I have frequently had tobacco far- 

 mers tell me that the flea beetle did no damage, while at the same time 

 we were standing in the midst of tobacco beds covering three times 

 the area that he would have had to have under cloth if it had not been 

 for the flea beetle. 



