CHAPTER V 



GENERAL CROP PESTS 



Injurious insects may be classified, as regards the nature of 

 their food plants, into several more or less distinct groups. 



The most important of these are choice or special feeders, 

 and include many of our worst pests. They attack only single 

 crops or crops of a single class, save in the direst necessity 

 when they sometimes resort to other crops and weeds. Examples 

 of this group are the two asparagus beetles which live exclu- 

 sively on asparagus, the cotton worm and boll weevil, which are 

 injurious only to cotton, and the tobacco worms which affect 

 only tobacco, tomato and plants of the same botanical family. 



Many insects are more or less nearly omnivorous. Although 

 some have favorite host plants, they are likely to attack many 

 other plants, and when extremely numerous or when the favored 

 food becomes scarce they devour nearly every form of vegeta- 

 tion that grows in the garden, field, orchard or forest. This 

 group is not so numerous as the first and not so destructive, as 

 a rule, because of attack being distributed, but certain cutworms 

 and other caterpillars, leaf-beetles, flea-beetles, aphides and 

 others may do very serious damage, while still others, like 

 locusts and army worms, sweep over large areas and in a short 

 time ruin entire crops. 



CUTWORMS AND RELATED INSECTS 



Cutworms are among the most troublesome insects with which 

 the market gardener has to deal. They are familiar to most 

 persons, and sooner or later everyone engaged in plant growing 

 has to contend with these pests, for they are what are termed 



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