INSECT PESTS 



OF 



FARM, GARDEN AND ORCHARD 



CHAPTER I 

 THE INJURY TO CROPS BY INSECT PESTS 



Ever since the locust plagues in the time of the Pharaohs his- 

 tory is replete with accounts of insect scourges and the enormous 

 losses they have caused the agriculturists of all ages. However, 

 instead of diminishing with the advancement of agricultural 

 methods, injurious insects have undoubtedly become both more 

 numerous and more destructive in modern times. " In no coun- 

 try in the world do insects impose a heavier tax on farm products 

 than in the United States. The losses resulting from the depre- 

 dations of insects on all the plant products of the soil, both in 

 their growing and in their stored state, together with those on 

 live stock, exceed the entire expenditures of the National Gov- 

 ernment, including the pension roll and the maintenance of the 

 Army and the Navy."* " Very careful estimates, based on crop 

 reports and actual insect damage over a series of years, show 

 that the loss due to insect pests of farm products, including 

 fruits and live stock, now reaches the almost inconceivable total 

 of $1,000,000,000, annually."! The above quotations from Mr. 

 C. L. Marlatt, Assistant Chief of the Bureau of Entomology, 

 United States Department of Agriculture, may appear to the reader 

 either ludicrous or startling, according to the extent of his infor- 

 mation concerning the role which insects play in our Agricultural 



* C. L. Marlatt, Yearbook U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1904, p. 461. 

 t C. L. Marlatt, Journal of Economic Entomology, IV, 109. 



