Daily Los Angeles herald., 1884-07-26
Visit OF Matthew Cooke.

Mr.. Matthew Cooke, the eminent en-
tomologist. concerning all manner of
dangerous insects, has been paying this
county visit that should be Of great
importance to our horticulturists in the
future. Mr.. Cooke stated that in no
part Of the State had he found SO many
dangerous insects as in Los Angeles
county, and that the people must wake
up and exterminate the creatures now,
or the insects would exterminate the or
chards by and by.
There is abundant reason for the prev
alence Of these insects in this county.
The land is rich and well watered; the
climate mild and atmosphere calm; the
vegetation is lush and crisp and the
fruit large and delicious. With these
favorable conditions it is no wonder
that insects thrive well and the worms
which they generate become strong,
large and aggressive, and the farmers
and orchardists have need to be on their
guard 10 exterminate these insects be-
fore they do their mischief.
During the day Mr.. Cooke went
around to the various electric light masts
and collecte / large assortment of in
sects that were killed during the previ-
Gus night. The large spotted winged
moth, of which SO many bushels are now
being killed, he says. is the ancestor of
the large green caterpillar with red
spots, the worm that eats tomato plants
and kindred vegetation. Mr.. Cooke
also found specimen of the De Long
moth, which appeared in Marin cou nty
in 1881, and destroyed all fruit and
every leaf from 1000 trees of the De
Long orchard on the Novata Rancho in
single week. This great orchard has
q, 900 apple trees and 1000 pear. april
cot and other trees, the fruit of which
sells for $50, 900 annually. Had not
prompt and decisive action been taken
in killing tie worms the whole crop
would have been lost.
From this one case it will be seen that
the danger from insects is OF ,lossal
magnitude and may be counted by mil.
lions Of dollars.
DeLong hired all the available help that
he could obtain, and went to work to re-
move the worms and the Larvae on the
bark Of the trees. By paying high
price for the larva. by the ounce, Mr..
belong secured and destroyed l60, ,OO0.-
600 unborn caterpillars. Such mon
strous invasion is terrible to think of,
and it required nearly $1,000 to save the
orchard with it's $50, 900 crop of fruit.
Mr.. Cooke says the electric lights are
doing q wonderful work in killing off
these dangerous creatures, which are
multiplying very rapidly in this city,
but the people must 60 farther and ex-
terminate them more rapidly. San
Gabriel and Pasadena, he says, have ex.
terminated all the more dangerous pests
at small expense, but this city has an
immense work to do to exterminate that
horrid white cottony cushion and the
red scale bug, and the Goblin moth. At
Santa Barbara he found these three ter
rible creatures, which had caused great
havoc among the orchards. In one OF
the glass shades of the light by the St.
Charles, Mr.. Cooke found moth eating
martin, that had plunged in to get a
meal Of insects and could not get out.
These birds are very useful in catching
certain kinds Of insects, but they would
die of old age before making much Of an
inroad on these destroying angels. The
visit of Mr.. Cooke has been one of great
Importance to this section, and as he is
on the staff OF the Record Union we
may expect to hear from him at length.