NATIONAL COUNCIL OF HORTICULTURE 21 



terms of dollars and cents the annual shrinkage in value throughout 

 the United States from insect attack. By reason of the enormous 

 value of the annual production of the farm and forest a very small 

 percentage of loss from insect injuries gives, in the aggregate, figures 

 that at first thought might seem extravagant. Agricultural statistics 

 for 1889 and subsequent years indicate an annual value of farm pro- 

 ducts of about $5,000,000,000. To those who have followed the destruc- 

 tive work of insects from, year to year to produce of the orchard, farm, 

 and garden, in the field and stored, and to live stock, a shrinkage in 

 value on account of insect injury, for the country as a whole, of 10 

 per cent will, I believe, appear conservative. In fact this percentage 

 of loss will more often be exceeded than otherwise, as illustrated by 

 the ravages of orchards by the San Jose scale; the apple crop by the 

 codling moth ; peaches, plums, and apples by the curculio ; grain crops 

 by the Hessian fly, joint worms, the chinch bug and grasshoppers; 

 cotton by the boll weevil and boll worm, and the losses to live stock 

 through the agency of the cattle tick, the transmitter of the serious 

 malady of cattle known as Texas fever. A 10 per cent shrinkage in 

 value of the total farm production means a loss of $500,000,000, and 

 to this must be added losses to forests and lumber and to forage crops, 

 stored grain, and miscellaneous products, which on a similar conserva- 

 tive basis amounts to $200,000,000. We therefore have as the approx- 

 imate annual loss by insects in the United States the enormous sum of 

 $700,000,000, an amount which exceeds the entire annual expenditure 

 of the National Government. 



ECONOMIC STATUS OF INSECTS AS A CLASS. 



But it should not be understood that all insects are destroyers of 

 crops. Broadly speaking, insects are good or bad as they favor or 

 interfere with man's interests. There is a popular misconception in 

 the minds of a great many that insects as a class are decidedly injuri- 

 ous. As a matter of fact this is far from being the case. The class 

 Insecta, in point of species, comprises about four-fifths of all 

 animals, and the number of species which is thought to exist has been 

 variously estimated at from one to ten million. Of this enormous 

 number not more than 400,000 have as yet been actually described and 

 named. From North America are recorded only some 40,000 species, 

 and of these perhaps not more than 1,000 or 1,200 ought to be regarded 

 as injurious. The great proportion of our insect fauna feed upon plants 

 of no special economic importance, as on wild plants, weeds, etc. A 

 large number feed upon animal substances, including those which are 

 parasitic and predaceous upon other insects. In respect to their rela- 

 tions to man's interest as a class, insects have been grouped as follows :* 



* Economic Status of Insects as a Class, by L. O. Howard, Science, 

 n. s. Vol. IX, p. 233. 



