130 DDT — ^Killer of Killers 



emphasized that DDT can't be used safely on all plants, for 

 some species of the vegetable kingdom are poisoned by it. 

 For example, it is harmful to cucumber and melon vines, and 

 other curcubits. And, it should not be used on tomato plants. 

 The best advice we can give is: Follow the instruaions on 

 the label of your insecticide, and heed the advice of your local 

 agricultural specialist. 



Beauty and the Beasties 



Butterflies and moths are lovely creatures. With their 

 gaily colored wings and their gentle, unhurried motions, they 

 seem to us to be the aristocrats of the insect world. But 

 every school child knows that in an earlier stage of develop- 

 ment these beautiful, carefree, flying insects are nothing but 

 ugly, squirmy caterpillars, whose only object in life seems 

 to be to eat up all the vegetation in sight. Remember how 

 our teachers in the first or second grade used to tell us about 

 the silkworm? Of course that was way back before the 

 Pearl Harbor episode, in the days when Japan was a group 

 of beautiful islands known to most Americans chiefly for its 

 kimonos, rice, chop sticks, and geisha girls. Anyway, our 

 teachers used to tell us that the silkworm moth would lay 

 her eggs, the eggs would hatch to caterpillars — the silkworms 

 themselves — and the worms, after gorging themselves on 

 lots of tender mulberry leaves, picked by the slender hands 

 of Japanese maidens, would eventually wrap themselves up in 

 silken cocoons, in the hopes that some day they would emerge 

 as their ancestors did, as full-fledged flying moths, ready to 

 heed the call of nature to perpetuate their race. 



Alas for most of these dreams: the Japs would take the 

 cocoons and dunk them in hot water to kill the worms in- 



