PREFACE 



Among the hordes of insect foes with which the American 

 farmer has to deal, those affecting vegetable crops are in many 

 respects most troublesome. Vegetable plants are exceptionally 

 perishable, and the control of their insect enemies entails a 

 very considerable expenditure of money and time. The an- 

 nual losses due to insect attack on vegetable crops is esti- 

 mated at 20 per cent., or double that of the average farm crop. 

 The injurious vegetable-feeding forms outnumber in species the 

 insect enemies of any other single class of crops, excepting 

 possibly deciduous fruits, and this nearly endless variety of 

 pests necessitates information in regard to each. Many are 

 intermittent in attack, hence the grower should be forewarned 

 in order to guard against injury or to check it before irrep- 

 arable damage has been accomplished. The progressive veg- 

 etable grower should be as amply equipped with knowledge 

 as the fruit grower, and if he would be entirely successful in 

 avoiding losses from insect ravages he should be provided with 

 a complete outfit for spraying operations and should keep on 

 hand or know where to obtain at short notice a good supply 

 of necessary insecticides. The more general observance of 

 certain farming methods with a view to the prevention of in- 

 sect injury will greatly lessen the losses from this source. 

 Until within recent years few farmers in planning the manage- 

 ment of the farm for the season considered the effect which 

 any given method of tillage would have upon injurious insects. 

 Too frequently they fail to look far ahead, and as a rule ro- 

 tation of crops where practiced is more for the sake of soil 

 improvement than for the avoidance of insect injury, and yet 

 crop rotation is the best and sometimes the only remedy for 



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