4 WILD LIFE CONSERVATION 



undesirable increment in wild life was promptly 

 eaten by its natural enemies; and predatory man, 

 both tame and wild, kept down what might other- 

 wise have been a surplus of bears, foxes, lynxes and 

 other carnivorous animals by trapping them for 

 their fur. 



Forty years ago, the spraying of fruit-trees and 

 shade-trees was almost unknown. The only insect 

 enemies of the western farmer and fruit-grower 

 were the grasshopper, tent-caterpillar, the potato- 

 beetle, and at long intervals, the chinch-bug of the 

 wheat-fields. Even after the advent of the Colo- 

 rado potato-beetle, their black and yellow stripes 

 were so attractive to the rose-breasted grosbeaks 

 that in many localities there were not enough of the 

 beetles to supply the popular demand. 



To-day, the farmers, fruit-growers and foresters 

 of the United States are engaged in a hand-to-hand 

 struggle with great armies of destroying insects. 

 It seems as if every bush and tree, and every vege- 

 table, fruit and farm crop has its own special insect 

 plague. Between $7,000,000 and $8,000,000 are 

 expended annually, and in one sense utterly lost, in 

 spraying-machines, poison solutions and labor in 

 fighting insect pests. 



For forty years we have been, as a people, crimi- 

 nally destructive of valuable wild life. Now we are 

 paying for the follies of the past. The most foolish 

 of all men is he who needlessly quarrels with a good 

 friend or destroys a valuable ally. Our treatment 



