BENEFICIAL AND INJURIOUS INSECTS 



hosts operate in the granaries, orchards, gardens, and 

 fields, and in the stock farms and yards of our country. 

 What is the grand total? Mr. B. D. Walsh was one of 

 the best entomologists of his day. He had the rare 

 faculty of clothing his careful observations with the 

 charm of vivid description; and his genial but caustic 

 pen impaled many popular entomological follies. Nearly 

 forty years ago (1867) he estimated the total yearly loss 

 in the United States from insects to be from $300,000,000 

 to $400,000,000. Twenty-three years later (1890), Riley, 

 who began his remarkable career as a co-worker with 

 Walsh, and was long the chief of the Bureau of Ento- 

 mology, estimated the loss at $300,000,000. Dr. James 

 Fletcher, in 1891, footed up the loss at about one-tenth 

 of our total agricultural products, or $330,000,000. In 

 1899, E. Dwight Sanderson, after careful consideration 

 of the whole field, put the annual loss at $309,000,000. 

 With the increase of agricultural products, and the 

 facilities for estimating gains and losses, Mr, C. L. 

 Marlatt, Assistant Entomologist of the Department 

 of Agriculture, estimated for 1904 the following direct 

 losses : 



To cereals $200,000,000 



To stored crops 100,000,000 



To sugars 5,000,000 



To hay and grass 53,000,000 • 



To cotton 60,000,000 



To tobacco 5,300,000 



To truck crops 53,000,000 



To fruits 27,000,000 



To miscellaneous crops 5,800,000 



To animal products 175,000,000 



To forests and lumber ...... 150,000,000 



Total- $834,100,000 



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