CHAPTER VIII 



INSECTS INJURIOUS TO BEETS AND SPINACH 



The recent extension of the sugar-beet industry in this 

 country has been the means of bringing to notice a large number 

 of insects not previously identified with that plant. Owing to 

 its lesser prominence as a merchantable product, spinach is not 

 grown to the same extent, and it follows that its known insect 

 enemies are fewer still. With the exception of some insects 

 which will be mentioned, the majority of those which live more 

 or less habitually on beets and spinach feed normally on related 

 wild plants, including the goosefoot, amaranth, saltbush and 

 the like. During the last quarter century several insects have 

 been so prominent as pests in fields of sugar-beet, that they 

 have received names indicative of their beet-feeding habit, while 

 some few take their common names from spinach. Of these 

 are the beet army worm, beet webworm, spinach leaf-miner, 

 spinach flea-beetle, beet carrion-beetle and the beet aphis. Up 

 to 1907 nearly 200 species of insects have been observed to use 

 beets as food. 



The greatest losses from insect attack are probably due to 

 flea-beetles, but they, as well as cutworms and similar groups, 

 are so irregular in their depredations that an exact estimate 

 cannot be made. Different species of leaf-beetles and cater- 

 pillars, other than cutworms, do more or less injury, and several 

 blister beetles devour the foliage of sugar and table beets freely ; 

 most forms of the last, however, usually make their appearance 

 so late in the season that, although defoliation may be excessive, 

 comparatively little damage is accomplished. The same is true 

 of some species of grasshoppers. Two common forms of farm 



120 



