Norwich bulletin., 1915-04-17
written Specially for The Bulletin.)

taking ABOUT OuSS
suspect you've heard many g
farmer break into the conversation
with some such words.
Once on a time, the average farmer
thought he had a hard enough job
fighting weeds. In the days when al
cultivation had to be done with fingers
and hand tools, it was dreaded task
to start in at the end of q Ave or ten
acre field of corn or potatoes. The
sore fingered, lame bacl1ed farmer OF
those days might well have thought
that the worst labor of his year would
be relieved II he only had some horse
tools to do the work
Well, in due course Of time and
human invention, the horse tools came
along. First the cu1ttvator; then the
horse-hoe; then the weeder; then the
planter and the digger. The farmer
who wanted to could prepared his land
riding on a sulky-plow could plant
and cover the seed with a horse drawn
machine; could cultivate the crop from
start to finish with horse tools; could
dig the Eaters with a horse digger.
But did raising potatoes become an
amusement about that time?
Not to any appreciable extent.
Just about the minute things got to
the pass described, and when the
farmer began to hope that one Of the
worst of his trials was over with
Just about that minute Mr.. Potato
Bug sauntered on to the field.
just how that particular bug had
been amusing himself during the I'M
told centuries and aeons before he
turned his attention to potatoes, have
not been Informed. Whatever his
original occupations and recreations
were, they had kept him very fit He
had a good appetite and apparently no
trouble with his digestion. Moreover
he believed In big families. He could
eat twice his own weight in a day,
and the more he ate and the heavier
he grew the more he wanted. 1t was
as If "a thousand pound COW demanded
q ton Of hay per diem. At the same
time. a single pair. If unchecked. were
capable Of producing 100000 young
bugs each and every single season.
Some bug, you'll observe.
The result was that the farmer, in
~tead of having a little relief from the
{ new tools which made cultivation
easier and quicker, found himself COM
PEELED to put all the time his new tools
saved him into the job Of bug fighting.
And the last state of that man was
worse than the first
But-"talkine of bugs"-the potato
bug isn't the only toad in the puddle
Expert auckland of the Smithsonian
Institution at Washington is authori-
ty for the statement that there are
about 100000 known species of insects
300, 600 which have been caught and
dissectsd and described and named
He intiInates that there are quite as
many more possibly in existence, which
have not been thus described.
Most of these live on vegetation
Their favorite pasturage is on the
leaves Of plants. They ordinarily pass
through three stages of life; first the
egg, then the grub, then the adult in
sect It is usually in the grub state
that they do the most of their eating
and this period of their development
is cunninelv planned to coincide with
the season of the year when fresh
foliage is naturally due.
Apparently. too. they have as cult
waited and fine a taste as human be-
lngs. They manifestly prefer garden
plants to wild ones.
Did you ever know a bug to cal
weeds?