Eighth Report of the State Entomologist. 269 



tions to the extent of at least one-half of their present magni- 

 tude. What an addition this would be to the national wealth 

 and to individual well-being! 



How TO Meet our Insect Enemies. 



Turning now to the practical part of my paper — how may wo 

 best meet our insect foes? I will name some of the methods by 

 which this may be done. 



High Culture.— 'Fiv^t and foremost, I would recommend high 

 culture. Just in proportion that the vigor and growth of a crop 

 is promoted, to the same extent there is given to it the ability to 

 resist and overcome the effects of insect attack. While the 

 feeble plant succumbs, the vigorous one will flourish and mature 

 despite the drain upon it. It will have a rcisistant force to sus- 

 tain it, just as health and a well-developed body may exclude or 

 triumph over disease. And then, again, the weak, sickly, or 

 diseased plant, made so either through negle(;t of cultivation 

 or lack of needed fertilizing material, directly invites insect 

 attaclv. The peculiar odor that emana-tes from it when in 

 this condition, is at once detected by the msect, and serves 

 to draw it from distances that seem almost incredible. Insects, 

 that they may readily find tihe food-plamts on which they ai'Cr 

 destined to feed and those upon which they are to deposit their 

 eggs for the continuance of their species, — as if in compeinsation 

 for a feeble, short range, and quite imperfect vision, have been 

 endowed with a sense of smell which, is maiv^Uous in its acute- 

 ness, and is without parallel in any other class of ihe animal 

 world. It is believed by some entomologists that many of our 

 insect pests never make attack on healthy vegetation, but only 

 on that which is diseased; as if in the economy of nature they 

 were specially coumiissioned to hasten destruction and decay; 

 and among these they would place many of the bark-borers that 

 infest our fruit and shade trees, with which it seems almost hope- 

 less for us to contend. 



Clean Culture.— A. large proportion of our insect i)ests survive 

 the winter within such shelter as they may find in decaying wood, 

 sticks, boards, or raUs lying on the ground. Dead vines, stalks 



