BUG VS. BUG. O 



to a desert. Orange-growers were in despair. From eight thousand 

 carloads, shipments dropped to six hundred in one year. Every pos- 

 sible remedy was tried, but none was found effective, and even the most 

 costly served only to temporarily check the spread of the pest. Orange- 

 growers were digging out and burning their trees to get rid of the pest, 

 but even this did not avail, for had all the orhards been destroyed there 

 was sufficient wild stuff to keep it spreading. 



In 1888 the National Government made an appropriation for the 

 purpose of advancing the American interests at the Melbourne Expo- 

 sition, and the appointment of the late Hon. Frank McCoppin as 

 chairman of the commission to forward said interests was the nucleus 

 of California's first effort in the search for natural enemies of orchard 

 pests. McCoppin 's friends in the orange district where this pest had 

 caused such terrible losses urged that he should do something to save 

 the orange industry. Correspondence was opened with the Hon. 

 Thomas F. Bayard, Secretary of State, and through him, with the 

 Department of Agriculture and the Entomological Division of that 

 Department. This resulted in the sending of Albert Koebele, who dis- 

 covered the Vedalia cardinalis, with the commission. While there were 

 others in the State who were convinced of the parasitic theory and 

 enthusiastic in their efforts to bring about the investigation, there was no 

 available money until the above opportunity presented itself. 



This discovery of a small ladybird known as the Vedalia cardinalis 

 started California on her present course of fighting bugs with bugs, and 

 no doubt this will continue until every insect pest that disturbs plant 

 life and its fruits will be overcome by natural insect enemies, even if it 

 should require traversing the very ends of the earth. 



It is to be hoped that other states, and the National Government, will 

 take up this work and thereby save hundreds of millions of dollars' loss 

 that is now borne by the cultivators of the soil. 



This ladybird was collected and forwarded to California and dis- 

 tributed all over the State wherever the scale had made its appearance. 



Nearly, if not quite, all of the injurious pests of any section are intro- 

 duced species, and in every case they have been introduced without their 

 checks, for in its native habitat every pest, in fact every form of life, 

 has some other form of life which preys upon it and prevents it from 

 becoming redundant. Now, when any such form is removed to a new 

 section, where it has no natural enemies, there is nothing to stop its 

 unlimited spread, and as insects propagate more rapidly than any 

 other form of animal life, without some check they would 'soon overrun 

 everything within reach. These checks are usually other insects, and 

 they are divided into two general classes the predaceous class, or those 

 which devour their prey from the outside, the most important among 

 which is the great ladybird family, and the parasitic class, or those which 



