Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1877-09-07
GBeYermont 9Benif.
BRATTLEBORO
FRIDAY EVENING, SEPT. 7, 1877.
FARM and FIRESIDE.
VIVA, IL Cost. TO Feed Insects.


There are about thousand species of in
sects in this country which are injurious to
our grain, forage, and field crops, cur gar
den vegetables, fruit crops, and forest and
fruit trees. Among them few are special
ly destructive. In 1875, it is said, as many
as ten thousand settlers were driven out of
Kansas by grasshoppers. In Missouri, ac-
cording to Stale Entomologist Riley, the
damage done by these insects in 1874 ex-
ceeded SIS, 100000, and he estimates the los
ses in other parts of the West at twice as
much more, in all, S45, 00O, 900 for one years
support of these pests. During the same
year, the destruction of growing crops by
the chinch bug amounted to $4,000, 900 in
Missouri alone. Just ten years before, in
Illinois, the same insect occasioned loss
FOYER $4,000 900 in a single season. The
average annual damage to the cotton crop
OF the country by the cotton army worm is
estimated at 100000 900. The devastating
potato beetle is capable of deducting other
millions from the annual profits of our ag-
riculture, and the thousand other insect
plaques are easily competent to swell the
aggregate annual board-bill of their kind
to something like 900, 900, 900, according to
the estimates of Professor Packard, whose
conclusions on a subject like this are we'll
worthy Of respect.
If this enormous sum, or even half of 1t
could be saved, II would soon amount to
enough to pay the national debt. The ques-
ton whether 1t can be saved or any por-
tlon of it, is certainly worth considering.
Professor Packard is confident that, with
nd ha pb
walton of facts by scientific men, from fifty
to hundred million dollars of this annual
loss could easily be prevented by a little
CO. operation between the several States and
the General Government. He would have
the former emulate the practical good sense
Of Missouri and each appoint salared en-
tomologist. Then these gentlemen, acting
in connection with q United States Com
miss Toner of Entomologists, might issue
weekly bulletins, perhaps in combination
with the Weather Signal Bureau, reporting
the con dition OF the insect world, fore
warning farmers and gardeners from week
10 week of the insect enemies TO be guarded
against, and suggesting the preventive and
remediable means that should be adopted.
The cost would be comparatively slight;
the possible good immense.
Take, for illustration, the grasshoppers,
or, more properly, locusts, of the West.
They breed chiefly on the great plains be-
yond the Mississippi, from Minnesota to
Texas. In summers of unusual drouth
they multiply enormously, and the supply
Of food being short they are obliged TO mi
CRATE.
Profe ssor Packard tells of a swarm of To-
Gusts, first observed at Boulder City, Color
ado, which travelled six hundred miles TO
devastate Eastern Kansas and Missouri.
Its original home was somewhere in Wyo-
ming, perhaps two or three hundred miles
northward of Boulder City. The locusts
fly with the wind; and as the general d-
rection of the wind in those parts during
the summer season is pretty we'll known,
the movements of the locust armies can al
ready be predicted with tolerable accuracy.
But more knowledge is needed, particular
ly with regard to the meteorological fea-
lures of the Western country, and the re-
lation of locust migrations to wind and
weather. In the pursuit of these investi-
cations, Professor Packard justly urges
that the meteorologists and the entomolo-
ment has provided a we'll organized corps
of weather observ ers, and the addition of "a
few competent entomologists would in
crease the outlay but little, while the result
tant good would, in all probability, be very
great. 1t would certainly he so if, as seems
by no means unreasonable, the service
should be able to master the conditions of
''locust years." and be able 10 tell with
good degree of certainty when locust inva-
sions are likely 10 occur, and how they may
be prevented.
In his plea for such observations in the
West, Professor Packard observes that, not
only should the border States, especially
Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, and
Iowa, employ entomologists, following the
liberal policy of Missouri which for eight
years has had State entomologist, whose
reports have proved of incalculable practi-
cal value to the people Of that State; but
the habits Of the locust need first of all TO
be thoroughly studied in the Territories,
particularly in those of Wyoming, Mon
tana, Idaho, Dakota, Utah, New Mexico,
Arizona, and in the new State of Colorado.
A commission of entomOlogisls should be
appointed 10 make thorough study of tha
locusts in the Territories mentioned. II
would seem that the recommendation made
at the recent meeting of Western Cover
nors, at Omaha to the effect that an appro-
priation be passed by Congress, and COM
mission be attached to the existing United
States Geological and Geographical Survey
OF the Territories (Hayden's), is the most
feasible and economical method of secur-
ing the speediest and best results"
This is but one feature of the work that
might be done with profit toward rorestall-
ing the depredatiUns OF insects, regular and
periodical ; q work which must, sooner or
later, be undertaken, and which may ulti-
mately prove as beneficial to the country
as the weather predictions have been.-Sci-
entJfc american.