INSECT PESTS OF FARM, GARDEN AND ORCHARD 



United States Department of Agriculture, may appear to the 

 render either ludicrous or startling, according to whether he be 

 more or less informed concerning the important role which insects 

 play in our agricultural economy, which in turn forms the warp 

 of American prosperity. 



A brief resume of the records of damage done by insect pests, 

 of the cost of fighting them, and of the estimates which form the 

 basis of the above statement, will make it the more convinc- 

 ing. 



Growing Cereals. Probably no other insect docs so widespread 

 damage as the Hessian fly, attacking our chief staple, wheat, -as 

 well as rye and barley. One-tenth of the whole crop, valued 

 at $50,000,000 to $70,000,000, is generally conceded to be de- 

 stroyed by this pest every year. In certain sections the loss often 

 amounts to from 30 to 50 per cent, and in 1900 was estimated 

 at fully $100,000,000 (Marlatt, I.e.). The southern grain louse 

 or " green bug " caused a loss estimated at from $5,000,000 to 

 $10,000,000 in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas in 1907, and every 

 year there is a considerable shrinkage of the wheat crop due to 

 the work of various species of plant-lice whose injury doubtless 

 amounts to 2 or 3 per cent of the crop, worth $15,000,000 to 

 $20,000,000. 



The corn crop of the United States was worth $1,720,000,000 

 in 1909. One of the worst pests of this crop in the Mississippi 

 Valley is the chinch-bug. Several years ago Professor F. M. 

 Webster estimated the loss from this insect since 1850 at 

 $330,000,000, and at present it probably destroys at least 2 per 

 cent of the corn crop every year, worth over $30,000,000, and in 

 many years the loss is much more. The western corn root-worm 

 and the corn root-aphis which work unnoticed on the roots 

 of the corn throughout the same territory cause an equal loss. 

 The corn ear-worm often destroys from 5 to 10 per cent of the 

 crop in the South, and throughout the Corn Belt it . undoubtedly 

 decreases the crop by 2 or 3 per cent. 



The total value of cereal crops in the United States in 1909 

 was practically $3,000,000,000, which was undoubtedly decreased 



