CHAPTER XXXIII. 



INSECTS AND FUNGI. 



S WE have no freezes to help destroy insects, 

 we no doubt have a greater number to contend 

 with than our Northern growers. We have lit- 

 tle trouble with them during our rainy season, 

 but on the other hand, we are invariably pes- 

 tered with them in a protracted drouth, thus 

 showing that wet as well as cold weather is 

 'detrimental to them. 

 It seems a fact that fungi and insects of all kinds adapt them- 

 selves to the particular crops grown, and no sooner is a certain 

 crop produced successfully a number of years in succession in 

 any locality, until injurious fungi and insects appear, at first in 

 a scattering way, but soon making themselves conspicuous by their 

 number and the consequential damage done; thus the tobacco 

 worm, the tomato worm, the boll weevil and other kindred insects 

 and fungi grow abundantly, and are each known in the country 

 where these certain crops are largely grown. Their stealthy ap- 

 proach generally finds the unsuspecting and otherwise busy 

 farmer unprepared to meet their onslaught. In fact, even after 

 the grower has, by years of experience, become thoroughly ac- 

 quainted with their injurious habits, they still come almost every 

 season as more or less of a surprise. It is nothing uncommon, 

 therefore, for him to awake some fine morning and find his 

 thrifty beautiful crops already partly devoured by these destructive 

 vermin, and I will venture to say that not a single season has 

 passed by but what dozens of growers are in this way discour- 

 agingly surprised and disappointed. 



As in most cases of this kind, prevention is always to be 

 preferred to an actual remedy. It thus behooves the grower to 

 keep a sharp lookout, thereby endeavoring to anticipate these 



123 



