The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-04-11
KOEbELE BACK
EntomoIOgist Tells of
His Travels.
He Brings Bugs to Prey on Other
Bugs That Hurt Hawaii's
Trees and Plants.


tomologist, returned to Honolulu yes
terday morning from trip of seven
months in search of parasites to kill
scales and insects that infest and de-
stroy plants and trees. He went first
to Australia, then to Fiji, and later
back to Australia, where he spent most
of the time, and returned home by way
of Hongkong. He was sent by the Ha-
waiian government to find the lady
bugs and other parasites that feed upon
certain scales that kill trees and plants
in these islands, and he sent home to
Mr. Haughs of the government nursery
several hundreds of these creatures
They arrived in good order, and were
promptly liberated to begin their work.
Besides these. Professor Koebele
brought home a few insects in bottles.
On these he tried a curious experiment.
Wishing to know how long 1t Is pos
sible to carry these little things and
keep them alive without food, he col
lected them on March 4, and brought
| them all the way here without feeding
them at all, except during the last few
|
some nee which were destroying plants
on the Nippon Maru. Most of them
survived the journey.
This work which Professor Koebele
does is extremely interesting, the more
so because 1t is not matter which
can be learned from books. The pro-
| lessor has learned it for himself anu
while there are other men who have
made long study of the science, prob
ably no one has had his wide exper-
| fence in travelling to various countries
land doing the actual work of collecting
the bugs. He has worked it up for him
self.
Nineteen years ago he went to Cali
! fornia and engaged in this sort of work.
Among other services of great impor-
lance to the state he imported the
parasite (vedolia cardinalis) which
killed the cottony cushion scale which
was destroying all the fruit trees. par
ticularly the orange trees. 1t threat
ened the fruit industry of the state,
| amounting to several millions year.
Seven years ago he came here, and
since then he has been doing the same
service for Hawaii, except that his
work has been less hampered and bet
ter appreciated. When he first came
here the trees were black and bare of
| leaves, and the sidewalks were slippery,
sometimes, from the beetles and other
insects. The way to exterminate these
was to go to some other country where
| they have those creatures, study out
the parasite which feeds on them. i'm
port the latter in adequate numbers,
and set them at liberty in or near trees
| thus infested. This he did with great
success, as the appearance of the city
today shows.
Another pest threatened the coffee
trees on Hawaii, and was taken care Of
in similar way. Many years ago there
were quantities of roses in these ISL
| ands. japanese beetles came here and
killed them all. Then. a parasite was
| imported which killed the beetles, and
| now we have roses once more. There
win be plenty of beetles two or three
months hence, but the parasite is
here, too, and as fast as the beetles
commence operations the parasites
will multiply and kill them off, so tha;
the roses will not suffer very greatly,
ald the beetles will be constantly kept
down. \ scale attacked the orange
trees here, and Professor Koebele i'm
| ported an insect that fed on the scale.
| and now the orange trees once more
have chance. In some parts Of the
! city one may still see them eating
away the blight.
They tried spraying trees in Aus
tralia to get rid of pest of the insect
kind. with the worst results. The par
asites were there as well as the harm
full insects, and the poison killed all
the former, which are delicate, and
only few of the latter, which are
hardy; and no amount of spraying
would kill all the pests. Three
| months after they finished spraying
| the pests were there again as bad as
| ever, and there were no beneficial in
sects to combat them. Ii is never nee
| essary, as Professor Koebele remarked
last night, TO interfere with nature or
to fight her. There is a beautiful bal
ance in nature, and when a pest raw
ages a country il means that the bal
ance is out and needs TO be restored.
Ii is necessary In these cases to help
nature to right the. balance, not TO op-
pose her. The pests which have come
20 Hawaii, for example, arrived pre-
sumably in fruit, or plants, or mer-
chandise, or seeds. The pests that in
fest trees and shrubs elsewhere travel
ed with the seeds or cuttings and came
into active life where they could prey
do was to import the parasite which
in other countries keeps down this
pest, or blight, or scale and put it
where it can find its usual food. If it
should succeed in destroying the pest
entirely, it would perish for lack OF
food; and in any case it would do no
harm, none of these lady bugs being
injurious or predatory.
Massachusetts has been fighting the
gypsy moth for ten years, and has dur
ing that time spent hundreds of thou
sands OF dollars and employed a large
force Of men. II is now stated that Il
will take several millions more to ex-
terminate the moth. They can prob
| ably keep on at this work for an indefi-
mite number of years without getting
any nearer the desired result; whereas
the sensible thing would be to send
some one to Europe, to the countries
which have the same pest and gather
and import the parasite which feeds
| on II.