XXXIX. SOME INSECTS AT WORK ON FARM 
CROPS 
“That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that 
which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the 
cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten. 
Awake, ye drunkard, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, 
because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. 
For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, 
whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek-teeth of a great lion. 
He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig-tree: he hath made it 
clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.”’ 
—The Book of Joel, 1:4~7. 
Before there were farms, the plants we cultivate all had 
their insect enemies. They developed together in the wild- 
wood. The primitive farmer sought out the valuable crop- 
plants and brought them into his fields. The insects came 
along with them, uninvited. 
The making of fields disturbed the nice balance of nature. 
The massing together of plants that grew sparingly in the 
wildwood, made it possible for their insect enemies to find 
unusual food supplies, and to develop in extraordinary 
numbers. Potato beetles, hatched in the garden, find food 
plants waiting for them in abundance; they do not have to 
search the mountain-side for a few straggling wild plants on 
which to lay their eggs. Thus the farmer has made easier 
conditions for them, and is himself responsible for their 
unusual increase. It is because he has aided their increase 
that he now must take measures for their destruction. 
Each kind of plant has its own insect enemies. Different 
ones work in its leaf, its stem, its root or its fruit. No partis 
exempt from attack. Some insects feed openly upon the 
plant; others are concealed, as stem-borers and leaf-miners. 
Some, like the aphids, feed in great companies; others are 
solitary. A few scale insects attach themselves to the bark 
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