30 



NURSERY INSPECTION. 



(Published at the request of the Hatch Experiment Station, Amherst, Mass.) 



Losses by the attacks of injurious insects in Massachusetts 

 probably amount to over $3,000,000 each year. Two-thirds of 

 this sum could usually be saved if the proper methods of treat- 

 ment were generally known and applied, and that they are not 

 more universally used is much to be regretted. In order to spread 

 this knowledge more widely among the people of this State, the 

 Entomological Division of the Hatch Experiment Station at Am- 

 herst offers its services without charge, for the assistance of every 

 resident of Massachusetts who may at any time desire aid in this 

 line. 



Losses caused by Insects. 



A conservative estimate of the loss caused by insects to any 

 crop is 10 per cent a year, and it is too often the case that more 

 rather than less than this sum is lost. This is a direct tax col- 

 lected by nature and is too generally overlooked, because no crop 

 which has not paid this tax has ever been gathered. 



The value of the greenhouse, hothouse, cereal, hay, vegetable 

 and other crops of Massachusetts is given by the last census 

 (1895) as being over $26,000,000, while if the one-tenth destroyed 

 by insects were added it would be nearly $29,000,000. As two- 

 thirds of this loss could be avoided it is certainly most desirable 

 to use all measures to reduce nature's tax to its lowest amount. 



Much of the loss caused by insects is complete, but much more 

 is partial. The codling moth not only causes many apples to fall 

 before they are half-grown, but in addition so injures those which 

 remain as to greatly reduce their market value. The apple tree 

 tent caterpillar, though it does not attack the fruit, so reduces the 

 foliage that the tree spends its strength in making more leaves 

 just when it should all be directed toward growing and ripening 

 its fruit, which accordingly suffers in this way. 



While it is possible to estimate approximately the loss to crops 

 caused by insects, the injury to shade trees, forest trees, lawns, 

 flowering plants, etc., is not of a nature to be calculated, but is 

 certainly very great. Housekeepers are continually troubled by 



