The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-07-29
TROUBLE FOR THE BUGS.
WIPJN3 OUT FOES OF THE CROPS
WITH ARTIFICIAL DISEASES.

WITH ARTIFICIAL DISEASES.
Efforts Now Making to Inoculate Cab
bage Caterpillars With Bacteria
Injecting Cninch Bugs With Disease.
Fungus Troubles to Order for Cut
Worms-Florida's Newly Found
Phosphate Beds.
From the NetC York Sun
WASHINGTON, July 25.-When NJ. Pas
teur few years ago, proposed to kill off
the rabbits of Australia by introducing
among them contagious disease of u fatal
character, humanitarians exclaimed "Ohw
What will they think of similar plans,
which bid fair to be similarly adopted be-
fore long, for wiping out various bugs that
attack the crops9 There is the cabbage
worm. for example. about an inch and q
half long, with a special appetite for the
vegetable in question. It is subject to a
singular aud very deadly disease, caused by
bacteria. as consumption and typhoid
fever are in man. Does the latter
svmpathize with the unhappy cat
ernillar on that accounts On
4he contrary, scientists are forming plan
FIR spreading the complaint among cabbage
worms in general TO such an extent that the
srecies shall be exterminated. Prof. Gallo
wav. who superintends the government
plant hospital, mas just received a small con-
signmeut of germs Of the malady from
Florida. where the insect commits
GREAT havoc, and he is propagatinx
them by myriads artificially in corked
tDbes oiled with geietine. It will be
easy enough to prepare quantity of beef
tea-on that diet all bacteria greedilv feed
and multiply-aud transform it within a
few hours, by simply introducing a few
bacteria as an ingredient into q solution,
every drop of which contains thousands of
lively microbes. All that remains theoreti-
caIly will be TO spray the liquid, as if it
were any insecticide, upon the infested cab
bages, and any worm that Is touched by a
particle of it must die.
The manner in which these bacteria at
tack and consume the caterpillar is aston
ishing. Asa rule, they begin by assailing
the third segment of the animal from the
tail They literally eat it up, Transforming
its fleshy substance into SO much dscom-
posed matter, and so quickly do they do
their work that the victim is dead usually
within twenty-four hours after it is first in
oculated. 1t turns gradually from bright
green to brown, and finally to black-a
loathsome corpse. Within four days
the worm is so compile ely abb
scrbel by the morbid process that
nothing is left Of it except, literally, a grease
spot. Specimens sent to Prof. Galloway in
wooden pill boxes have disappeared entirely
within week, each worm leaving only
small stain to show that once there had been
q caterpillar. Not only does the sprinkling
serve to disseminate the fatal complaint,
but the latter Is spread also by every in
faptp1 " hat a haI
dozen might distribute the epidemic through
whole cabbage patch, aud SO rid it of
every caterpillar within few DAYS.
The bacteria are readily procured for
propagation from the cadAver of
the insects killed, which are filed with the
germs, Of course A platinum wire intro
duced into the substance OF one of the black
and shriveled bodies, and thereupon touched
to some gelatine in tube, will produce a
thriving colony off-hand. The truck gar
dener can easily be taught to manufacture
his own bacteria solution, half barrel 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 beiug 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. Prof. Snow of Kansas is
trying, with the aid Of 81 900 appropria-
ton, to introduce among them two different
bacterial diseases OF a fatal nature, and sur
prising accounts are given Of the manner
in which a few inoculated insects dis
tribute 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 such
complaints as are best calculated to 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 present time experiments
are being made with view to inoculating
the bollworm of the cotton with this very
disease. The latter. secretiHg 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 fungus complaint. Insects
are very liable to troubles Of this sort
When you see a fly stuck on a window pane
and surrounded with a sort of halo of
white, cobwebby substance, the latter is a
fungus by which it has been devoured
often you will tind moths afflicted in like
manner. Abroad, for some years past,
Efforts have been made to extermiuate
locusts, cut worms, and many other destruo-
tive bugs by spreading fungus diseases
among them, with partial success. A Great
ure corresponding TO the June bug of this
country does great damage TO forests in
Europe, and it is at present being attacked
ipythe same means. Germs are easily got
oy soaking the fungi in water, and can be
gfropagated like the bacteria for spraying.
moreover, every insect infected distributes
tne sporei OF the fungus, corresponding to
Sasas, wherever it goes, and thus the
junction is distributed. The most remark
aoie bug-eating fungus is fungus that
grows out of caterpillar, literally trans
.or9lng the animal into vegetable. 1t is
nQcn priced in some parts of the world as a
ueiicacy for eating.
nature so provides that, whenever an in
sect destructive to vegetable life becomes
Iver-aoundant, it is immediately attacked
~ disease, fungus or bacterial which
, n.eaAS CUT spontaneously. In 1886 the web
. IollhS We're SO numerous in Washington
suaV all TIE trees in the streets and parks
, mele stripped by them 10 nakedness. Im>
m oa.S,y bacteria and fungi attacked the
CATERPILLAR. .a.erpillars killing 80 per cent. of them,
MI uIng to the reckoning of the depart
r 'ehV OF agriculture, and the next
y0aE there were hardly auv Two