114 
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 13 
The writer’s definite results in increasing cantaloupe tonnage in 
southern California through control of severe aphis epidemics, leads 
him to state that practically all this tonnage could have been saved— 
an item amounting in transportation charges alone to about $14,400, 
to say nothing of loss to the growers in the section; and, in consequence, 
their lower purchasing powers and smaller shipments of purchases 
into the district. 
These few random examples give a definite glimpse of possibilities. 
Epidemics of grasshoppers, Colorado potato beetles, chinch bugs, 
etc., are too well known to merit further discussion here. 
The cry of the roads is for tonnage, tonnage and more tonnage. 
Give them tonnage and they can use you whether you call yourself a 
freight solicitor or an entomologist. 
Entomological Assistance and Crop Diversification 
Crop diversification is an important item in railroad economics. 
The greater the diversification—within, of course, reasonable limits— 
the greater the economy effected in the distribution of rolling stock, 
labor and risks. A section devoted entirely to one crop may cause a 
railroad enormous loss by the failure of that crop. Diversification 
would tend to minimize the possibilities of total crop failures. Single 
crop districts give rise to freight congestions, shortages of cars, and 
embargoes—all of which problems can be minimized by proper diver¬ 
sification. 
In many instances observed by the writer, the limiting factor preventing 
diversification has been an insect factor susceptible to satisfactory solution. 
Several instances have come to the writer’s attention in which some 
crops are grown only on a household scale which should be grown 
commercially in the same district. Such is often the case with cab¬ 
bages, onions, melons and other truck crops. Entomological work in 
such instances may result in practically building up communities. 
Often it occurs that crops, once established, are later abandoned 
because of insect pests. 
Doctor E. D. Ball, in a letter to the writer dated April 16, 1917, 
stated that: 
“‘Sugar beet blight,’ caused by the puncture of the beet leaf-hopper, has been 
a very largely contributing cause of the abandonment of sugar beet raising in a num¬ 
ber of western areas. Several factories have been dismantled and others are lying 
idle at the present time on this account, involving losses running into the millions 
of dollars in each case. These losses, while not entirely preventable in most cases, 
were sufficiently so to have maintained the industry if entomological assistance had 
been used.” 
He also states: 
“The sugar beet seed production was abandoned in the Arkansas Valley and other 
