CHAPTER X 



INSECTS INJURIOUS TO CUCUMBER, MELON 

 AND RELATED PLANTS 



If we except cabbage no vegetable crops suffer more from 

 the ravages of insects than do the cucurbits — squashes, cucum- 

 bers and melons. They are subject to attack from the time 

 the seed is planted and after it has sprouted until the fruit 

 is ripe for market. Injury is not effected by so many species 

 of insects, as in the case of cabbage, less than a score of 

 distinct forms being commonly identified with damage, but of 

 these nearly a dozen are highly injurious, and half as many 

 from their extensive distribution and destructiveness are of 

 the greatest importance. It is no uncommon sight to see four 

 or five distinct species on a single plant, and several others in 

 the same field. 



The seeds are attacked in the ground by a maggot which eats 

 into them and prevents germination. After the seed has 

 sprouted the plant becomes the prey of the striped cucumber 

 beetle, the most troublesome of all cucurbit-feeding insects. 

 Such plants as are so fortunate as not to be attacked by this 

 beetle, cutworms and some few other "general feeders" may 

 next encounter the squash bug and then the squash-vine 

 borer. The latter severs the vine or injures it so that it wilts and 

 dies. It is next to impossible in many portions of the United 

 States to find cucurbits that are wholly free from the melon 

 aphis which feeds by absorbing vegetable juices by suction. 

 After the plants have escaped the insects above enumerated 



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