The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1911-06-21
KEEP Them OUT
lasect Invaders Cost ibis Country Hill
lisns Every Season.
NO BARRIER is PUT UP

NU bAkkIEk ID PUl UP
Wheat, Cotton and Other Pests, Say
the Experts, Come from Abroad
Argentine Ant, Mexican Boil
WeevI, Hessian Fly and Gypsy
Moth Some Of Evils.
Are we in danger of a foreign in
vasion? No; the invaders are upon us
and doing much more damage than
an army would do. One foreign in
vader from Hesse Cassel costs the
farmers in the wheat belt from $780,
100000 to s100,000,000 annually.
A tough-backed invader from Mex
leo is crossing the cotton belt, eating
s25, 100000 worth of fibre between
early July and late frost.
Another invader whose original
home is stated by various experts to
have been in Asia or in Mexico is
costing the United States government
and dozen states s1,300,000 to
check his annual ravages among the
fruit trees.
Still another alien enemy has re-
Gently been Staying the woodland
shades and roadside trees and doing
Eincalculab1e damage to the forest
areas of the nation. His ravages have
never been estimated.
Officials of the Department Of Agri-
culture say that fifty per cent Of the
damage done by pests and parasites
among the orchards and crops of the
United States is caused by foreign
winged plaques that have been al
lowed to gain foothold in the coun
try
Every other civilized nation guards
against the introduction Of stinging
flying, creeping things that devour
the strength Of vegetation. The Unit
ed States does not. There are no
statutes making such action manda-
tory, and if there were there is no
machinery to put in action against
these pests. European governments
watch every entry port carefully.
The orchardists Of Europe watch
every shipment Of nursery stock that
is sent from the United States. Their
shipments to this country arrive and
are unpacked and bugs and flying
things that are death to vegetation
futter out and make for themselves
new homes in a new land. In few
years the department experts are hur-
rying to the despairing calls Of the
orchardists who are making losing
light against some new and eXtraor-
dinary kind Of pest that is withering
their trees.
One of the winged plaques poison
ed hundreds Of people in New Eng
land last summer and fall. One man
died of the effects Of what was known
as the "browntail rash,'' so called be-
cause it was caused by the presence of
millions Of "brown tail moths,''
brought over from Europe years ago
by some careless shipper. Whole
townships turned out to fight them
last year.
The gypsy moth is another tree de-
vastator that is slowly being spread
all over the United States. Both these
moths came originally from Europe.
They are but two of our foreign in
vaders. Five hundred tons of lead
arsenate were used in New England
last year in the stubborn fight made
against these two.
The San Jose scale of Infamous
memory was terrible invader. A
tree lover near San Jose, Cal, found
certain parasites on his orchards.
These spread to the trees Of his
neighbors. In a few years the San
Jose scale was all over the United
States 1t is dying out now. An
indefatigable professor traced it here
and there over the world and finally
located its original home somewhere
in China.
He brought home with him sack
full of it's hereditary enemies, a sort
of Chinese lady bug AS soon as they
got acclimated they started in to in
crease and wax fat off the tremend-
Gus number of their old victims, the
! scale Still there are enough San
Jose scale remaining in the United
States to cost the farmer and fruit
grower about s1O,0o0,O00 yearly.
An evil-looking bug came across
the Rio Grande near Brownsville,
Tex, in 1892. Nothing has ever
checked him since that time. He
crossed Texas, Arkansas and Okla
homa, jumped the Mississippi in 1908
and some day soon will have reached
the Atlantic unless checked. He has
cost the cotton planters nearly $685.
100000 since he invaded Texas, and
for the last three years he has been
gobbling up the cotton bales to the
tune of s25,000,000 yearly. Alto
gether he has eaten up millions Of
bales. The boil weevil has forty-fve
parasitic enemies, but they are too
weak for him.
In the East the eItomologists hope
to kill off the gypsy moths during the
present season by introducing moth
cholera among their invading
swarms. 1t is known as the wilt
and the infected moths die OF it by
tens of thousands Their bodies be-
come putrid and semi-liquid. An
other enemy, especially importer
from their old homes in Europe, will