1C6 ANNUAL REPORT 



NATURAL METHODS TO CHECK NOXIOUS INSECTS. 



We have to consider two well established natural laws, which 

 counteract each other and struggle for supremacy. This struggle 

 is so bitter that neither pardon is asked nor given. Nature seems 

 cruel, but she is forced to be so by inflexible laws, and as the re- 

 sult are solely for the benefit and advancement of all the members 

 composing the animal and vegetable kingdoms, we can only ad- 

 mire these methods. The two conflicting laws are: "Be fruitful 

 and multiply," and "Struggle for life?" If the former law had 

 full sway, pandemonium would soon reign supreme. The second 

 natural law acts as a wholesome check upon it, keeps any unlimit- 

 ed increase of specimens in due bounds, so that only the fittest 

 animals and plants can survive and reproduce. Suppose a single 

 female oyster could multiply without any natural check; a very 

 few years would suffice to till up the Atlantic ocean with oysters. 

 If a single female herring should reach the mature age of ten 

 years, her offsprings during that time would not alone increase 

 beyond any computation, and would not alone fill up all the oceans, 

 lakes, rivers and creeks, but would bodily crowd her to the top of 

 mountains. What would become of the stately oak if all the acorns 

 produced by it should grow into trees? They would furnish 

 enough wood to build a dozen Chinese walls around the globe, 

 high enough to hide the highest mountain tops. But as it is, the 

 law: "Struggle for life" quietly steps in and allows only the 

 strongest and best adopted offspring to continue the species. The 

 "Survival of the fittest" is the necessary and all important conse- 

 quence. 



As soon as any noxious insect becomes unduly numerous, its 

 enemies will increase as well, and most frequently at a much 

 quicker rate. This is easy to explain, because instead of the pre- 

 vious scarcity of food that now abounds, and the parasitic insects, 

 well fed, are now not required by necessity to search carefully and 

 for a long time for their prey, and for the food for their offsprings. 

 They find such food in abundance in their close proximity. Thus 

 at last the moment arrives when the plant feeding and parasitic 

 insects are nearly equally numerous. Now the parasites soon con- 

 sume their hosts, and but few of them escape this general 

 slaughter. But as soon as this happy condition of affairs takes place 

 (happy at least for the fruit-grower), the parasitic insects in their 

 turn have to suffer and die simply because there is no longer food 

 for them and for all their offsprings. The few escaping luckly 

 insects, both of the host and the parasite, gradually and slowly 

 increase again in numbers. There is truly an "up and down" in 

 the life-history of every insect. 



For the horticulturist it is very important to know the differ- 

 ences between his friends and his enemies. But it is not a very 

 easy matter for him to acquire this knowledge as there are im- 

 mense numbers of different kinds of insects around him, which 

 either belong to his friends and enemies or to indifferent insects — 

 insects which, as far as he is concerned, are of no special impor- 

 tance to him. 



