The Pickens sentinel. [volume] (Pickens, S.C.) 1871-1903, 1882-08-10
Injurious Insects.

There are few things more humiliat-
inG TO humanity than the sense of mans
helplcssncss before very small insects.
Tigers or wolves we can exterminate
easily enough, if we really set ourselves
TO work at il; rats, mice and weasels
we can keep down somehow. But be-
fore the Colorado beetle or the seven
teen-ycar locust we are practically al
most resourceless. And before the
phylloxera or the hop-fly we can hardly
do more than look OH regretfully with
folded hands. Yet it is some consola-
ton to reflect tnat what seems at first
sight n useless and purely ornamental
science can help us to some extent in
dealing with these intinitesimal pests.
The only way to conquer them, if way
there be at all, is to learn their whole
life history; to know them in the egg,
in the larva. in the pupa, in the full
tlcdgcd insect; to crush them in every
, stage. with whatever weapon the subtle
ties of chemistry or mere ingenious
ing which can in any way give them q
single extra chance of life Nothing, in
fact, could better show the intimate in
tcraction and reaction of knowledge and
practice than this interesting study. On
the one hand, no means can be devised
for getting rid Of injurious insects ex-
ccpL by q thorough scientific acquaint-
ance with their origin and metamor-
phOscs; OH the other hand, no such care
ful observations on particular life-hisA
tories have ever been undertaken, prob
ably, except with the stimulus of some
practical advantage TO mankind in view.
Thus science and agriculture both gain
by the con Injunction Even butterfly
hunting has its special commercial uses,
when the butterfly turns out TO be the
parent Of the gooseberry caterpillar, or
to lay the eggs from which warm sun
will hatch out tho destructive cabbage
worm.
Many of these observations help to
bring out the minute interaction which
often obtains between different parts
of the organic balance; no that if we
! want to eXtcrminatc a particular insect,
we must sometimes begin by cncourag-
! ing or REFRESHING some seemingly un-
connected bird or plant. For example,
botanists have long known that wet
seasons arc particularly favorable to
charlOck, and that after two or three
such seasons the fields. unless diligently
wccdCd, arc yellow all over with its
bright blossom. But charlock is ap-
! DlIcnlly mo ltGlFO IOOu- -Pldho VI UuI
nip fly, from which the insect spreads
easily to the cultivated turn!p-a close
ly allied artificial form; much as the
Colorado beetle, originally parasitic on
solanum in the Rocky Mountains, took
readily to the richer food of the very
similar potato vines, rs soon rs extend
ed tillago began to approach its natural
| habitat.
1t is only by such careful observation,
with practical application of the results.
that we can hope to outwit our insect
foes; for the more widely any particular
crop is grown, the more generally can
its natural enemies spread and survive.
Even in England, where hill and dale,
copsc and hedge break up the tilth, and
whore small fields Of various staples are
habitually muck intcrmixcd. the insects
can easily migrate from patch to patch
of their special food. plant: while in
America, where the same crop some-
times covers hundreds of square miles
together on the unfcnced and unbroken
| plain, locusts and army worms can
march straight across country, day
after day, in regular battalions. st.
| JG1neS' GlvzCtEe.