10 INSECT PESTS 



the great land policy which must make these islandi 

 practically independent and self-supporting. 



But no amount of legislation will prevent caterpillars 

 from eating cabbages. Here we are like the Barons 

 at the time of the Black Death, when about half the 

 population were wiped out. The goodly Barons, scenting 

 danger to their purses, went to Westminster and passed 

 a nice little law to the effect that no workman should 

 have more wages than he had hitherto received. They 

 then went straight home and paid double wages rather 

 than let their neighbour sing a siren song to the few 

 men who were left. They were up against an economic 

 law, in face of which Parliament is powerless. It is the 

 same with natural laws, except that they are much more 

 drastic ; and if we complain of an insect pest which comes 

 along seemingly out of pure " cussedness," we should 

 remember that there is a definite cause for its appear- 

 ance, and a definite remedy must be found sooner or 

 later. Clearly, then, a little sound knowledge of ento- 

 mology, picked up by the grower in his spare time, is 

 not only interesting but highly profitable, and I shall 

 endeavour to show in the chapters that follow, avoiding 

 the technical side as much as possible, how such know- 

 ledge can be gained and how to apply it to the ends we 

 have in view. 



I was once introduced to a man who had given up 

 his ordinary handicraft to chance his luck as a market 

 gardener, in the days when the grower's trade was the 

 least paid of any calling. He did it because he hked it, 

 and didn't like his former work. 



Yet this man, who had suirounded himself with every- 

 thing his heart desired, from grape-vines to blackberries, 

 from orchids to mustard and cress, gave me the impres- 

 sion of being thoroughly disheartened with it all. I felt 

 sorry for him. He looked tired and overworked, with 

 the drawn appearance of a man who never has any rest 

 on a Sunday, and never has time to tidy liimself up and 



