WITH a total production of approximately $9,000,000,000 

 worth of agricultural and forestry products in the 

 United States, which products suffer a loss of about 

 $800,000,000 every year through the voraciousness of insect 

 pests, it is not to be wondered at that anything which tends 

 to decrease that loss by which our nation is robbed each year, 

 is of special interest. It is the work of the economic ento- 

 mologists to restore to the agricultural classes as much as 

 possible of this loss, and, by their researches, to place citizens 

 on their guard against insect enemies. They have been rea- 

 sonably successful in their efforts, as shown by the large ap- 

 propriations for this work niade by federal and state govern- 

 ments. Massachusetts, for example, has used, in the past, 

 $150,000 annually to combat the gypsy moth, to which must be 

 added approximately $100,000 spent by private citizens in that 

 state, and $10,000 contributed by the United States govern- 

 ment. New Jersey is on record as spending $350,000 a year in 

 fighting mosquitoes alone. Losses from the San Jose scale, 

 coddling moth, Hessian fly, chinch bugs, and grasshoppers 

 have been materially reduced through the work of our ento- 

 mologists, who have also lessened by nearly or quite half, the 

 $100,000,000 loss on stored products, such as mill stuffs, fruit, 

 cotton, woolens, etc., suffered each year in the United States. 

 In considering the work of entomologists, however, we must 

 not overlook the value of our birds many of them, wrongly 

 suspected of being without any redeeming quality, in keeping 

 in check the hordes of insects and four-footed vermin that 

 prey upon the crops of farmers, gardeners, and orchardists. 

 The amount of insects eaten by birds and brought to their 

 young by parent birds is almost incredible. For example, 76 

 per cent of the food of the bluebird is composed of insects 

 and insect-like animals. The house wren has about the same 

 record. Meadow larks consume cutworms, wire worms, crick- 

 ets, and grasshoppers, as well as other injurious forms of 



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