31 
THE PROFIT IN REMEDIAL MEASURES. 
The overwhelming experience of the past dozen years makes it almost 
unnecessary to urge, on the ground of pecuniary returns, the adoption 
of the measures recommended in the foregoing pages against insects. 
To emphasize the value of such practice, it is only necessary to call 
attention to the fact that the loss to orchard, garden, and farm crops 
frequently amounts to from 15 to 75 per cent of the entire product, and 
innumerable instances could be pointed out where such loss has been 
sustained year after year, while now, by the adoption of remedial meas- 
ures, large yields are regularly secured with an insignificant expendi- 
ture for treatment. It has been established that in the case of the 
apple crop spraying will protect from 50 to 75 per cent of the fruit 
which would otherwise be wormy, and that in actual marketing experi- 
ence the price has been enhanced from $1 to $2.50 per barrel, and this 
at a cost of only about 10 cents per tree for labor and material. 
In the case of one orchard in Virginia, only one-third of which was 
sprayed, the result was an increase in the yield of sound fruit in the 
portion treated of nearly 50 per cent, and an increase of the value of 
this fruit over the rest of 100 percent. The loss from not having treated 
the other two-thirds was estimated at $2,500. The saving to the plum 
crop and other small fruits frequently amounts to the securing of a 
perfect crop where otherwise no yield whatever of sound fruit could be 
secured. 
An illustration, in the case of field insects, may also be given where, 
by the adoption of a system of rotation, in which oats were made to 
alternate with corn, the owner of a large farm in Indiana made a 
saving of $10,000 per year, this amount representing the loss previ- 
ously sustained annually from the corn root-worm. The cotton crop, 
which formerly in years of bad infestation by the leaf-worm was esti- 
mated to be injured to the extent of $30,000,000, is now comparatively 
free from such injury, owing to the general use of arsenicals. 
Facts of like import could be adduced in regard to many other lead- 
ing staples, but the foregoing are sufficient to emphasize the money 
value of intelligent action against insect enemies, which, with the pres- 
ent competition and diminishing prices, may represent the difference 
between a profit and a loss in agricultural operations. 
