96 TRUCK-FABMI^G AT THE SOUTH. 



CHAPTER XL 



INSECTS AND THEIR REMEDIES. 



The working farmer is so occupied in the pursuit of his 

 profession, and by the study of the phenomena by which 

 he is surrounded, upon a correct appreciation of which 

 his success will largely depend, that he rarely has sufficient 

 time to devote to botany or entomology as a science. 

 The laws of vegetable growth, an intimate knowledge of 

 useful and noxious plants, and, above all, a clear percep- 

 tion of, and discrimination between his friends and foes 

 in the insect world, are among his urgent needs. Next 

 to the contingencies of season, his prosperity will depend 

 upon the extent of insect depredations. Millions of dol- 

 lars' worth of property are annually destroyed by in- 

 sects, and a knowledge of their habits is required, that 

 we may learn how to deal with them, in order to stay 

 their ravages. If farmers more correctly appreciated the 

 aggregate losses by insects, they would probably take a 

 deeper interest in studying them. (See Exodus x: 5, 

 14-15.) 



In A. D. 591, a vast horde of locusts ravaged Italy. 

 From the stench of their decaying carcasses arose a pesti- 

 lence which carried off nearly a million men and beasts. 

 In the Venetian Territory, in 1178, the same insect 

 created a famine, during which thirty thousand persons 

 died of starvation. So well did the Arabians know their 

 power, that they make a locust say to Mahomet: "We 

 are the army of the great God; we produce ninety -nine 

 eggs; if the hundred were completed, we should consume 

 the whole earth and all that is in it." Professor Riley 

 estimated the annual loss from insect depredations in 

 Missouri at fifteen to twenty millions of dollars, and the 



