Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1895-08-19
INSTRUCTIVE FACTS.
Some Points Called from Prof. Cock
erel's Lecture Before the
Fruit Growers.
To the Editor of the New Mexican.

Santa Fe, Aug. 17.-As an orchardist
DESTROYS of learning, think that the very
instructive lecture delivered before the
New Mexico Horticultural society last
Monday deserves more notice than the
short local which appeared in your CO.
lumns on Tuesday. In the first place
Prof. Cockerell informed us that there are
already 2S4O0O varieties of insects known,
nearly all of which are injurious to vege-
four times as many more insects yet an
described. Many Of these are able to in
crease 80 fast that, for instance, from one
aphis can proceed 270,000,000 progeny in
one season. Other plant enemies are
equally prolific, and with this countless
host the horticultnralist must wage con-
slant war. In their natural habitae every
insect has natural enemies as well as num-
erous parasites to check its inordinate in
crease; if it we're not SO the earth would
soon be stripped of vegetation and no
longer habitable for man.
But when an insect is transported to a
region where conditions favor it's de-
velopment, being freed from its natural
restraints, it increases with enormous
rapidity and becomes plague. For in
stance, the European cabbage worm and
the currant worm, imported into America
without the parasites and the Colorado
potato beetle which in the Rocky noun
tains is of rare occurrence, have in the
east become plaques. In New Mexico
we have already imported and have thriv-
ing amongst us cooling moth, pear slug,
San Jose scale, striped chafer, web-worm,
bryobia, woolly aphis and several others
which will devastate the orchards if I'M
divided into two classes, biting and suck"
ing, and must be treated accordingly,
the biting insects by application of
poison on the foliage, and the sucking
insects by application of coal oil or
something else which will kill them
through the skin, or by stopping their
breathing pores. Scientists have divided
the earth's surface into certain zones, &C.
cording to the insect and plant life there
! in, and there is a vertical as well as a
geographical distribution of thus life.
There is first the treeless zone, 10000
feet and timberless. Second, the
Black Timber zone. Third, the Mid
Alpine zone, about 5000 feet, where
fruit trees will not grow. Fourth,
the Transition zone, in which Santa re
finds itself, where wine grapes will not
thrive. Fifth, the Upper Sonoran zone,
in which is Albuquerque. Sixth, the
Middle Sonoran zone, where is placed
Las Cruces and the places where neither
oranges nor olives will grow. Seventh,
the Lower Sonoran zone, where citrus
and semi-tropical fruits grow but COCA
sional frost occurs. Eighth, the Tropical
zone, where it never freezes and vegeta-
ton is rampant. In all these zones the
plant and insect life are very destructive
in character and a knowledge of these
destructives is of great service to the
horticulturist and would save him from
Improbable ventures in his business.
The foregoing are only few of the
interesting points touched upon by Prof.
Cockerell in his lecture and are only en-
phasized to indicate the nature of his dis
course and the practical value of such
lectures by truly scientific as we'll as a
nrpctical man ARTUuR BOYLE.