The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-07-26

before long for wiping out vari-
Gus bugs that attack the crops2
There is the cabbage worm," for ex-
ample-an otherwise innocent creature,
about an inch and half long, with
special appetite for the vegetable in ques-
ton. It is subject to singular and very
deadly disease, caused by bacteria, as
consumption and typhoid over are in
man. Does the latter sym&athize with
the unhappy caterpillar on that account
On the contrary scientists are forming q
plan for spreading the complaint among
cabbage worms in general to such an ex-
tent that the species shall be extermin-
ated. Professor Galloway, who superin-
tends the government plant hospital. has
just received a small consignment of
germs of the malady from Florida,
where the insect commits great
havoc, and he is propagating them
by myriads artifcially in corked tubes
filled with gelatine. 1t will be easy enough
to prepare quantity of beef tea-on that
diet all bacteria greedily feed and multiply
and transform it within a few hours, by
simply introducing few as an ingredient,
into solution every drop of which con-
tains thousands of lively microbes. All
that theoretically remains will be to spray
the liquid, as if it were any insecticide,
upon the infested cabbages, and any worm
that is touched by particle of it must die.
The manner in which these bacteria at
tack and consume the caterpillar is quite
astonishing. As rule, they begin by as
sailing the third segment of the animal
from the tail. They literally eat it up,
Transforming its fieshy substance into so
much decomposed matter, and so quickly
do they do their work that the victim is
dead usually within twenty-four hours
after it is first inoculated. It turns gradu-
ally from bright green to brown, and
finally to black-a loathsome corpse.
Within four days the worm is so COM
pletely absorbed by the morbid process
that nothing Is left of it save literally a
grease-spot. Specimens sent to Professor
Galloway in wooden pill-boxes have disap-
peared entirely within a week, each indi-
vidual leaving only small stain to show
that once there had been a caterpillar.
Not only does the sprinkling serve to
disseminate the fatal complaint, but the
latter is spread also by every infected worm
wherever il goes, so that half a dozen
might distribute the epidemic through q
whole cabbage patch and SO rid it of every
caterpillar within few days. The bac-
terra are readily procured for propagation
from the cadavers of the insects killed,
which are filled with the germs, of course.
n WiIc 1HtIOQuStA 1AtO tn0
substance of one of the black and shriv-
elled bodies, and thereupon touched to
some gelatine in a tube will produce a
thriving colony off-hand. The truck gar
dener can easily be taught to manufacture
his own bacteria solution. Half barrel
full at a time, for distribution with an
atomiZer, and the natural spread of the
disease, will clear whole districts of the
worms more or less permanently. Such
at all events is the theory.
1t remains to be seen what will result
from similar measures that are being
taken against the chinch bugs in the West,
which do such enormous damage to
wheat, corn and other grains, getting into
the funnel-shaped part of the leaves where
they join the stalks and sucking the sap of
the plants until they die. Professor Snow,
of Kansas, is trying, with the aid of a
$1,000 appropriation, to introduce among
them two different bacterial diseases of a
fatal nature, and surprising accounts are
given of the manner in which a
few inoculated insects distribute
epidemics far and wide among
their kind, causing destruction to myriads.
Other bugs elsewhere in the United States
are to be attacked in like manner with
destroy them. 1t is thought that the
malady so deadly to the cabbage worm
may be equally fatal to other obnoxious
insects of different species, and at the pres
emit time experiments are being made with
a view to inoculating the boll-worm eff the
cotton with this very disease. The latter,
secreting itself In the boil of the plant, is
not easily reached by ordinary insecticides.
In addition to the two bacterial diseases
referred to, the ruthless scientists of Kan
sas are trying to inoculate the chinch-bugs
wholesale with a fungus complaint. In
sects are very liable to troubles of this sort.
When you see hy stuck upon a window
pane and surrounded with sort of halo of
white, cobwebby substance, the latter is
fungus, by which it has been deyoured
Often you will find moths afflicted in like
manner. Abroad, for some years past,
efforts have been made to exterminate
locusts, cut-worms, and many other de-
structive bugs by spreading fungus dis
eases among them, with partial success. A
creature corresponding to the June-bug of
this country does great damage to forests
in Europe, and it is at present being at
tackled by the same means. Germs are
easily got by soaking the fungi in water,
and can be propagated like the bacteria,
for spraying. Moreover, every insect in
fected distributes the spores of the fungus,
corresponding to seeds, wherever it goes,
and thus the affliction is distributed. The
most remarkable bug-eating fungus is a
mushroom that grows out of a caterpillar,
literally transforming the animal into a
vegetable. 1t is much priced in some
parts of the world as delicacy for eating.
Nature so provides that, whenever an
insect destructive to vegetable life becomes
over-abundant, it is Immediately attacked
by disease, fungous or bacterial, which
breaks out spontaneously. In 1886 the
web-worms were so numerous in Washing
ton that all the trees in the streets and
parks were stripped by them to nakedness.
Immediately bacteria and fungi attacked
the caterpillars, killing 80 per cent. of
them, according to the reckoning of the
department of agriculture, and the next
year there were hardly any. Two
bad chinch-bug years never come
together. As quickly as they reach
such numbers as To overset natures bal
ance of life epidemics wipe them out
wholesale. 1t is the same way with all
sorts of other bugs. The inevitable cpl
demic each time reduces the swarming
tribe to few. which grow in numbers
year after year until the season comes for
another plague to reduce them to the bot
tom of the scale again, and so ad intini-
tum.
To illustrate the rapidity with which
microbes multiply, it is stated on eminent
scientific authority that if the oceans of
the world were composed of beef tea a
single bacterium would I'll them up solid
with its progeny within thirty days
RI