Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1910-05-06
INSECT PESTS.

The enemies of man are in the main
not great but small, insects being the
great ravagers. To say nothing of the
intestinal ills that are brought about by
microscopic or semi-miscropic inhabi-
tants of the alimentary canal, and which
are the active agents in the causation of
much disease, insects are almost every
where, attacking everything, from the
food We eat, to the very cigars We
smoke, the cloth we wear, the wood
with which we build, the very books
we read and the corks in the bottles
which confine the drinks and medi-
cines we use. In the tropics ants
eat up the interior of the timbers of
houses, causing these to crumble into
dust. One species of insect will eat
anything, from wood to cayenne pepper,
and the wine merchant is as much in
dread of a creature which devours the
corks of bottles as he is of fermen-
tative damage. A borer has been known
to cut through book after book in a row
of valuable volumes on a shelf, and will
readily bore his way through sheet-lead
to find his food in the dry paste that is
used in book-binding. The codling
moth lays its eggs in the blossom of our
apples, and the worm Matched in this
receptacle finds its way into its heart
destroying the most luscious fruit. To-
bacco is attacked, and cigars are de-
voured as readily as if the weed were
iuicily favored. Still another attacks
the coffee bean, nutmegs, and certain
sorts of spices. Wheat is eaten up by
the weevil and whole cargo of this
grain has been practically ruined by this
small creature in transit from this
country to Europe, while even flour is
not exempt. Just how many millions of
bugs are ground up in the grain we use
for bread, the peas and beans we con-
sumo, the small fruits we enjoy, we can
never know, and perhaps it as well that
we do not. Fortunately for US we are
not injured by the cooked creatures we
take as an incident of our daily bread,
and it is as well that we do not think
took much about this inadvertent adul-
teration of our sustenance. A returned
college student once brought home with
him microscope, and was horrifyng
his younger brothers with the sight of
wriggling creatures in some cheese on
the table. The father of the household
went IN eating cheese. "Oh, father,
said one of the boys, chow can you eat
that cheese. with all those wriggling
things in it?'
''Let 'em wriggle, let 'em wriggle",
said the old man, stoically, eff they can
stand it cam. And while it is fact
that countless living and dead animal
culae may inhabit our foodstuffs it is a
comfort not to be too particular about
their presence. The quiet cow that
browzes on the short herbage of the
pasture seems to get on very comfor-
tably in spite of the vast amount OF
dirt she swallows along with her grass,
and it is likely that we who own the COW
are as little affected by our microscopic
incidents as she who furnishes our milk
True, while in some cases she may swal
low tape-worm. egg or SO, that in tim,
transfers its affections to our beef anc
thence inhabits our intestinal canal, tn,
risk is slight, and the pig that gets
few trichina spiralis with its food an,
thereby brings about a distressing an,
occasionally fatal condition of things il
our interiors. we go on ham-eating with
out anxiety. Very wonderful is tn
fact that man survives in spite of hi
enemies large and small, and it is
comfort that he does not too much cor
J cern himself about them.