4 IITSECTS INJURIOUS TO STAPLE CROPS. 



hay crop, or 120,000,000, fairly represents the loss upon 

 this crop and pasture-lands due to insects. 



Cotton. — The cotton-plant has a number of serious 

 enemies, of which the Cotton-worm, Boll-worm, and Boll- 

 weevil are the worst. In 1880 the United States Ento- 

 mologic^al Commission valued the annual ravages of the 

 Cotton-worm at 130,000,000, but, thanks to their careful 

 study of the pest, the damage done by it has been greatly 

 lessened in recent years. But the Boll-weevil has now 

 presented itself in Texas. In 1894 it damaged the Texas 

 crop to the extent of 18,000,000, and its injuries are not 

 reported as having diminished. Thus ^15,000,000 must 

 be a low estimate for the insect depredations upon cotton. 



Tobacco. — The tobacco crop, valued at $25,000,000, has 

 a horde of insect enemies at all stages of its existence, 

 which will easily consume 8 per cent of it, or $2,000,000. 



Potatoes. — The Colorado Potato-beetle does not do that 

 crop so serious an injury as formerly, but some new 

 enemies to it have appeared, and a loss of $10,000,000, 

 or about 6 per cent of the value of that crop, is un- 

 doubtedly caused by our six-legged foes. 



Surely, when we include the injury done to fruits, truck 

 crops, domestic animals, and timber, $300,000,000 is a 

 conservative estimate of the price these apparently insig- 

 nificant little insects are annually costing this country. 



Yet there is another aspect to the matter. '' One man's 

 loss is another man's gain" is never more true than as 

 regards these losses occasioned by insects. For, through 

 wide-spread injury by them, prices rise; while if these 

 injuries were not done and correspondingly large crops 

 were placed upon the market, prices must surely fall. 



