which originally fed on wild grasses, to resort to pastures and 

 meadow lands. 



The operation of these various causes, together with the enor- 

 mous powers of multiplication possessed by the insects them- 

 selves, has led to a constantly increasing injury to cultivated 

 crops, until to-day these tiny foes exact a tribute of ten per cent, 

 of the crop products of American agriculture. They form an 

 omnipresent host of taxgatherers, taking possession of the far- 

 mer's crops and enforcing their onerous demands without pro- 

 cess of law, unless preventive measures are vigorously prosecuted. 

 They are no respecters of persons ; like the rain, they fall upon 

 the fields of both the just and the unjust. 



"The authorities best able to judge have estimated the annual 

 loss in the United States due to these little pests at nearly half 

 a billion dollars. Noxious insects, according to Dr. C. V. Riley, 

 recently the distinguished entomologist of our National Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, occasion losses in the United States which 

 are ' in the aggregate enormous, and have been variously esti- 

 mated at from $300,000,000 to $400,000,000 annually.' In 

 single states and single seasons the loss is often frightful in 

 extent. During some of the great chinch-bug epidemics the 

 loss in Illinois occasioned by this one insect has amounted to 

 over $73,000,000 a year; and in seasons not marked by an out- 

 break of such a great crop pest the injury is much more severe 

 than is ordinarily supposed. The official entomologist of the 

 state just named. Professor S. A. Forbes — after years of careful 

 field observation and statistical study — has recently expressed 

 his belief that ' the insects of the state of Illinois derive as 

 large a profit from the agriculture of this great agricultural state 

 as do the farmers themselves.' " * 



Fortunately, however, there is an extended silver lining to this 

 dark cloud of insect injury. If these creatures have increased 

 on every hand, our knowledge of methods of controlling them 

 has also augmented with the passing years. Many of the 

 remedies proposed ten or twenty years ago, seem now foolish 

 and impracticable. Within the last decade especially, the 

 progress has been phenomenal. It has been shown that many 



*C. M. Weed, Popular Science Monthl}', March, 1S93. 



