NATURE'S CRAFTSMEN 



Over eight hundred million dollars a year! "'Tis 

 a good round sum!" Of course, there are compensa- 

 tions. As crops go down, prices go up. It is perhaps 

 needful that some extraneous elements should hold in 

 check the excess of production, and thus cause an equali- 

 zation of results and a distribution of labors. What 

 man in his greed and overgrasping unwisdom would 

 not do for himself, the inferior orders and physical forces 

 are set to accomplish. Perhaps, from this view-point, 

 the injurious insects may have a function of good that 

 our philosophy has not yet fathomed. But, then, one 

 must consider the maxim of his boyhood, "There's such 

 a thing as having too much of a good thing!" And 

 decidedly, we have too much of these insect regulators 

 of the balance of agricultural production. Eight hun- 

 dred millions a year is far too much for even a fatalist 

 to bear with equanimity; and the bulk thereof must be 

 set down as an unmitigated misfortune. 



Is it possible to prevent this enormous loss ? Absolute 

 prevention is not possible; but it is certainly practicable 

 to reduce the damage within tolerable hmits. This is 

 the function of the Bureau of Entomology. Its leaders 

 and chief workers proceed upon the assumption that a 

 complete knowledge of the life habit and relations of an 

 insect must be known before it can be attacked success- 

 fully. Its manner of propagation and growth, its food, 

 its enemies— all must be studied. Does this seem waste 

 of time?— mere curious quest of the secrets of nature, 

 pleasant as natural history, but economically profitless? 

 There can be no campaign without a plan of campaign, 

 and that includes iirst of all a complete knowledge of 

 the strength, quality, the supplies, the assailable points, 

 the offensive and defensive armor, the natural allies and 



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