13 



been left alone, and had eliniatic eonilitions been favorable lor their in- 

 crease. 



Tiie amount of claina.i;e done to crops every year is so vast that the 

 figures excite incredulity from those who do not study crop statistics. 

 The ajj^ricultural products of the United States are estimated at about 

 $3,S00,()00,(>00. Of this it is thought that about one-tenth is lost by the 

 ravages of insects. This is in many cases unnecessary. In short a sum 

 of $3S(),()00,00() is given up without a murmur and almost without a 

 struggle by the people of the United States. 



Crops ot all kinds are injured, and simple remedies are known for 

 many of the attacks and are more or less adopted. Some have already 

 come into general use. Paris green is now applied to potato fields al- 

 most as much as a matter of course, as manure is to fertilize the soil. 

 As an instance of how a saving may be made even in well-established 

 methods, I give the following : Through the work of Mr, VV. B. Alwood, 

 of the Virginia experiment station, improved machinery and the water 

 mixtures of poisons have come into general use amongst the farmers 

 and potato-growers in the Norfolk region, and some of the largest 

 growers now claim that they at present do for from $40 to $60 what used 

 to costthem from $500 to $000. To-day in California and Florida orange 

 trees are universally treated with kerosene and resin emulsions or pois- 

 onous gas for scale insects. 



In the treatment of cabbage caterpillars, pyrethrum diluted with four 

 times its weight of common flour, and then kept tightly closed for 24 

 hours, leaves nothing to be desired, and thousands of dollars are yearly 

 saved to small growers who most need the assistance. 



Many excellent remedies have been devised by a mere modification 

 of existing agricultural methods. Instances of these are found in the 

 early and late sowing or harvesting of some crops, as sowing turnips 

 between the broods of the turnii) flea-beetle, the late planting of cab- 

 bage for the root maggot, the late sowing of wheat for the Hessian fly, 

 etc. In the 1879 report of the U. S. Department of Agriculture was first 

 detailed the only successful method of treating the clover-seed midge by 

 cutting or feeding off the first crop before tlie young larvte are suffi- 

 ciently matured to leave the heads and go into the ground to pupate. 

 This was simply a change of one week, by which not only is the insect 

 destroyed, but the clover is saved in better condition than under the 

 old method. 



During the present summer Professor Osborn has discovered that a 

 serious pest of the clover plant, Grapholitha interstlnctana^ a small moth, 

 may be destroyed in all its stages by simply stacking the hay soon after 

 it is cut. 



In the Southern States Mr. Howard Evarts Weed writes to me with 

 regard to the cotton worm : " The loss would indeed be great were it 

 not for the fact that the planters keep it in check by the prompt ai)pli- 

 catiou of Paris green in a dry form. The only method now used is to 



