:240 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, 



Tbe all engrossing subject of tares is not more important. These little prowlers in 

 their numerous clans and myriad hocts, attacking almost every variety of grain, 

 fruit and vegetable, levy heavier tributes than the State and nation combined. 



Prof. C. V. Riley, Entomologist to the Department of Agriculture, rates the 

 amount of insect ravages to the nation, at hundreds of millions a year, and the 

 President of the Missouri Horticultural Society said a few years ago that the loss 

 <^ the fruit growers of that State alone, by inflects, was not less than $60,000,000 a 

 year. What data he based his estimate upon we do not know, but it is easy to 

 figure up several hundreds of thousands lost to our own State yearly by the curcu- 

 lio, codling moth, the borers, canker worms, and other tribes in our orchard«<, and 

 the Hessian fly, the midge, joint worm, chinch bug, and other pests in our grain 

 fields. It is not extravagant to say that fifty per cent, of our apples are rendered 

 ■ansaleable and well nigh useless by that arch enemy of this most valuable of our 

 fruits, the codling moth. The plum, one of the most productive of our orchard fruits, 

 :*nd once one of the most profitable, is scarcely grown in our State, and simply be- 

 •cause of the destructive ravages of the curcuUo. Ten per cent, would not be an 

 anreasonable estimate, one year with another, for the damage done to our wheat 

 «rops by the Hessian fly, the army worm, and a score of other enemies to this plant. 



Putting the yield of the State at 40,000,000 bushels and the price at seventy-five 

 cents per bushel, this Item alone would show a loss of $3,000,000. The loss to corn 

 from chinch bugs, the grub worm, and the new pei^t, the corn root worm, do not yet 

 reach such a figure, perhaps, though the damages from these and other insects are 

 yearly increasing, while our meadows and clover fields suffer increasing losses by 

 grubs and root worms. If we descend t<» less important crops we shall find that in 

 the aggregate immense losses are sufTered by the devouring hordt-« of potato bugs, 

 cabbage worms, melon bugs, currant worms, squash bugs and vine borers, raspberry 

 and strawberry leaf rollers, and other enemies, scale inse<cis, plant lice, mealy bugs, 

 slugs, canker worms, tent caterpillars, and many more such pestiferous tribes. 



All these that have been named are reirular standbys. We expect to eee them 

 every year, and are not disappointed, but occasionally — and at not very remote pe- 

 riods, usually — we are visited in different sections of the State with innumerable 

 hosts of chinch bugs, and army worms that sweep whole townships, as a few years 

 ago, in Iowa, where the meadows and fields of grain were laid bare by the.se pests, 

 as though scorched by tire, over whole counties. We are liable to such incursions 

 at any time, and in any section of the State. These hungry hordes of depredators 

 make no announcement of their approach. They stand not upon the order of thew 

 coming. When they get ready, and all the recruits are in, they move right along 

 .double quick, and seldom fail to finish up whatever little job they have in hand, 

 with neatness and dispatch. 



Another unpleasant fact in regard to our insect plagnes is that new and strange 

 species are constantly appearing. It is not many years since the so-called Colorado 

 |)otato beetle came an unheralded stranger among us. More recently the cabbage 

 \worm came over from the old country to show us what he could do. The maple bark 

 louse has only lately cast in his lot with us, and his work on our shade trees will 

 tell of his presence for years to come. In some localities this pest has ruined fruit 

 trees as well as maples. Prof. Cook, of Michigaa, describes two new insect enemies 



