RAVAGERS OF CROPS 255 



and in 1885, through the ravages of the Phyl- 

 loxera alone, it had become reduced to 2,868,000 

 acres. That is to say, in round numbers, within 

 a period of ten years, four million acres of once 

 healthy and prosperous vineyards had been laid 

 waste by these insects. Fortunately preventive 

 means have been found to arrest this swift and 

 appalling work of destruction, and the threatened 

 industry saved from total extinction. Neverthe- 

 less, the ravages of the Phylloxera has cost France 

 a financial loss far in excess of that of the Franco- 

 German War. This terrible insect foe appears 

 to have first been discovered in North America 

 in 1854, and to have been carried thence on the 

 exported vine-plants to Europe, where it quickly 

 established itself and appeared as a noticeable 

 infestation about 1863. To-day it is to be found 

 in all vine-growing countries. The greatest 

 difficulties have been experienced in attempting 

 the successful destruction of this scourge with- 

 out injuring or totally destroying the vine-plants, 

 and but for the fact that the Phylloxera has many 

 natural foes, and that these have wisely been 

 cherished and encouraged in the vineyards, it 

 would have been impossible to check the swift 

 and ever-increasing spread of this terrible pest. 



The Migratory Locust (Pachytylus migratorius) 

 is of very great historic as well as economic 

 interest, for it is probably one of the oldest 

 insect foes of mankind, and records of its depre- 

 dations have been handed down from the time of 

 the early civilizations of the East. In the tenth 

 chapter of Exodus, for instance, we have a 

 graphic and dramatic description of a vast plague 



