198 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



lion dollars. However, where one farmer is trying to control 

 the plant diseases upon his farm, and his neighbor is doing 

 nothing in that direction, his efforts are practically wasted. This 

 should be a community-wide effort, everybody should take an 

 interest in it, and not only in the control of plant diseases, but 

 in the control of insect enemies, and that is the second thing 

 over which the farmer has partial control at least. The loss 

 from that source amounts to one billion dollars a year in these 

 United States. Enough money to support the United States 

 government, to pay off the pension roll, and to support our Navy 

 and Army. Equally distributed, each person in the United 

 States would receive about $50, which, if properly taken care of 

 and accumulated for each year for fifty years, would amount 

 to something like $9,000 for each man, woman and child in 

 the United States, and yet we, as agriculturalists, are doing very 

 little in the control of the insect enemies of our farm crops. 



The loss due to the Hessian fly is 100 million dollars yearly. 

 The farmer in this part of the state who sows his wheat before 

 the first of October is tiding over the life of the Hessian fly, 

 which later will be carried to the farms surrounding and not 

 only will the man who sows his wheat too early reap the reward, 

 but his neighbors will suffer therefrom as well. 



And now comes the greatest of all the losses due to insects, 

 those which insects cause in our stored grain: This amounts 

 to 200 million dollars per year, and you can get these figures by 

 applying to the United States Government, Agricultural Depart- 

 ment, report of Mr. Marley. Are we doing our duty is the 

 question that ought to come to every community and to every 

 individual within that community in the saving of that which 

 we have actually produced? First, we want to produce the 

 largest amount possible, and then second, we want to preserve it. 



Then the third factor that is partially under the control 

 of the farmer is the quantity of plant food available for the 

 growth of the crop. It seems to me rather strange that with 

 all that has been said and done in the way of experimenting and 

 issuing bulletins and the speaking of people, that some people 

 over the state are as slow as they are, in some localities at 

 least, to accept what has been termed the "Illinois System of 

 Permanent Agriculture." You may not believe in it implicitly, 



