HOW A CROP WAS SAVED. 97 



potatoes this year. Whether it is going to have the same 

 effect another year, I am not able to say. Whether I could 

 have destroyed them by poison, I don't know. All I know 

 is, that I put my boys in there, and they picked for weeks. 

 They picked off the bugs in the various stages of develop- 

 ment, from the time they hatched until they became hardened. 

 We picked them in baskets, put them in piles, and then 

 carted them off and burned them, so that I knew that those 

 we caught were totally destroyed. Well, we had two broods. 

 After we had secured as many as we could of one, the 

 remainder went into the ground, and it was some three or 

 four weeks before another brood came ; but they came at dif- 

 ferent times in different fields, so that we had employment 

 the whole season. 



Now, I suppose there are very few farmers who are so well 

 supplied with the material to pick these bugs as I am. Hardly 

 anybody in our State, probably, has three hundred boys. 

 I saved my potato-crop this year ; whether the same operation 

 will succeed next year, remains to be seen. I am sure, from 

 what I have seen in my own fields and in other fields, that the 

 beetle is going to prevail throughout Massachusetts. Whether 

 anything can be done to save the crop, whether we can pre- 

 serve it by poisoning the bugs, whether we can pick them off 

 and destroy them in that way, or whether we have got to give 

 up the production of the potato, and rely for our supply upon 

 some other place, I know not. But I am sure it is going to 

 be a serious evil,- and it is an important question how it is to 

 be met ; whether this beetle can be eradicated, whether we 

 have got to suffer from its ravages until nature provides a 

 remedy in some form, and whether we can do anything to 

 help ourselves. You have the experience of my boys this 

 year. They have saved the crop. If I had not done any- 

 thing, I should have had a very poor crop. 



Question. How much do you value the work of your 

 boys ? 



Dr. Wakefield. I have no doubt that if I had paid my 

 boys two dollars a day, the potatoes would not have paid. 



Adjourned to two o'clock. 



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