The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1909-09-10
A PLAGUE WHICH MAY
CONE TO THESE ISLANDS

walks with ease on water, slides down
wire, strolls into the baby's mouth,
eats kittens. protects all fruit lice and
kills it's enemies, destroys orchards,
and, in time, renders life in a com.
munity not only profitless, but intoler-
able, has come to California with the
intention of staying. And as it has
stayed everywhere else it ever visited
there would be every reason to believe
that it would within a FEW years take
complete posi- ssion of the state, do
\ away with fruit, especially oranges,
render pale and sickening the brilliant
flowers and make of this lovely country
J but feeble imitation of itself. were it
1 not for the fact that young man
, working in a quiet, prosaic garden in
4 East Oakland has solved the problem
. of its destruction.
! This ant is from the tropics, but it
has none of the easy going ways ac-
? credited to that cline. 1t is beyond
+ all comparison the busiest little ant
& there ever was and would serve to point
/ the favorite analogy. Moreover, it sup.
I ports the analogy, which modern nature
observers would discredit, by working
4 with definite purpose. AS an en-
Il pire builder humanity offers no
X parallel. 1t drives out all other ants
\ before it and takes entire possession
L of the field. 1t increases at an I'M
L believable rate-an ordinary garden
producing perhaps 100,0O0,000 in sum.
/ mer If left alone it will eat you out
| of house and home, and it is next to
impossible to keep groceries out Of its
!, reach. AS a house pest alone it is al
most unconquerable.
4 The first scientist who made note
or it discovered it in Argentina, but
it is even more common in Brazil, and
it is from that country that it migrat-
ed to America. 1t was met in this
country for the first time on the
wharves of New Orleans, having
Travelled from Rio Janeiro on coffee
ships. That was in 1892. Nothing was
done about it there until very recent
ly, and in seventeen years it has spread
I over 5000 square miles in Louisiana,
L completely destroying the orange trees
4 and stopping the large and fourishing
cut flower industry.
Somehow a colony was shipped in a
bale of cotton from New Orleans to
the plant of cotton works at the foot
4 of Twenty avenue in East Oak
land about eight years ago. They imme
diately migrated farther, according to
\ their restless habit, and now they have
i established themselves in the whole
4 section lying between Lake Merritt and
i Fruitvale, from the estuary to the
hills. During the unmolested years
they have also secured free trips to
Alameda, San Francisco, Stockton,
4 San Jose, Los Angeles, Ontario, River
jside and other southern California
points.
4 Until last summer California was ig-
,norant of the menace. The communi-
ties affected had complained ineffec-
8 ,tually of the bother of keeping away
8 the ants, but it was not until J. c.
Bradley, an entomologist connected
d with the University of California,
u gathered a few specimens and, not be-
ing able to classify them, sent the
4 specimens to Prof. W. I. Wheeler of
the American museum of natural his
tory that the awful truth was known.
= Argentine ant! 1t sounds portentous,
and it is.
j Prof. C. w. Woodwork, of the col
lege of agriculture, hearing the I'M
pleasant news lost no time. He made
trip to New Orleans to learn what
had been done there and returned i'm
mediatelv to establish an experiment
station in the midst of the largest col
ony in California, that in East Oak
and. Last October he rented a house
at 1913 East Twenty-second street,
fitted it out with the proper apparatus,
and placed assistants in charge. Little,
however, could be done in the fall, as
the ants were holing up for the winter.
Last February L. H. Day, formerly
sntomologist for San Benito county,
vas placed in charge of the active work
oy Professor Woodwork and, after
months spent in studying the life
habits and experimenting with poison,
ne has succeeded in reducing them to
Few per cent. of their former numbers
wherever he has worked.
His remedy is simple, easy to use
and not dangerous to children, animals,
birds or bees. He fills sponge with
4 syrup, places it in small fruit jar,
crews on the top, making few holes
n it with nail, and sets the con-
rivance in the garden.
The ants, always in search of food,
Don find it, and the word is passed to
III the ant colonies within several hun
lred feet. After they have fed off
s he sponge for several days and hun
lred million ants or so are receiving
ONE part of their nourishment from it,
lie puts poison in the syrup. By this
ime the lines of ants from the differ
mt nests are well established and they
AIRY away the poison to their queens.
Within a few days the nests are nlled
With the dead.
Day had just come to the conclusion
hat he had solved the problem, but
S lad few points yet to cover when
listed him at the experiment station.
Seing a scientist, he was not ready TO
nnounce his discoveries until he could
i've out everything accurately, but he
ranted me permission to print what
g had accomplished.
= In the field in which he has been at
york every garden and vacant lot in
everal sqaure miles is the roof Of an
normous ant house. The ants are