THE INJURY TO CROPS BY INSECT PESTS 3 



by 10 per cent due to the ravages of insect pests, which thus 

 taxed our grain growers some $300,000,000. 



Hay and Forage Crops. A host of small insects attack our 

 grasses and forage crops, many of them being so small that they 

 are unnoticed, though their aggregate injury is something enormous. 

 Of the larger pests of grasses and forage plants the army worms 

 are among the best known and have often caused a loss of over 

 half a million dollars to a single State in one season. Grass- 

 hoppers of various species are also always more or less injurious 

 and often become a serious menace. Probably the most serious 

 injury, however, is done by subterranean larvae such as the cut- 

 worms, wireworms, white grubs, and webworms, which breed in 

 sod land, and by the hordes of little leaf-hoppers which are 

 always prevalent, but whose injury often passes unnoticed. Ten 

 per cent of the hay crop was worth $65,000,000 in 1909, and this 

 is a fair estimate of the damage done to hay and forage crops 

 by their insect enemies. 



Cotton. The cotton plant has a number of injurious insect 

 enemies, of which the boll weevil, bollworm, and leafworm are 

 the most injurious. In 1904 the writer made a statistical study 

 of the decrease in the cotton crop of Texas due to the bofl 

 weevil, and showed that it was then costing that State $25,000,000 

 per annum.* This estimate has been confirmed by independent 

 investigations made by Mr. W. D. Hunter of the U. S. Bureau 

 of Entomology, and although the loss in Texas is not so serious 

 at present, the weevil has spread eastward into Alabama, so 

 that its total injury remains practically the same, and has 

 undoubtedly been a large factor in the higher price of cotton 

 in recent years. The bollworm is most injurious in the south- 

 western cotton-producing States, where it causes a loss of from 

 5 to 60 per cent of the crop. The total damage to cotton by 

 the bollworm is approximately $20,000,000 per annum and not 

 infrequently exceeds that amount. In 1880 the United States 



* E. D. Sanderson, The Boll Weevil and the Cotton Crop of Texas. (Bul- 

 letin Dept. of Agriculture, Insurance, Statistics and History, Austin, Texas, 

 1905, p. 28, 7 maps.) 



