Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1917-10-12
Fighting Insect Pests

,s. If the iusr, enemies Of injurious insccts. Much
of the data in the paper relates T." the suc'eSS''
prart sp Of parsls the science is shortly call
ed in Hawaii The first beneficial insect mFntioned
is the lady bird the introduction of which t" Ha"aIi
bv Prof. korbce will be remembered by the oidef
residents this being Of the countries mehtioheu
by DIR. Howard where this insect did good service
In his introductory remarks he says:
Amofg the many things which the department OF
agriculture done for agriculture and horticulture
In the United States very few have been as spectacu
lar and as Immediately beneficial as the introduction
CT the Australian ladybird or lady-beete, from Aus
tralia in the eighties to destroy the white, tuted or
cushion scale which al that time threatened
the absolute extinction Of the orange and lemon grow
ing industry in California. The immediate and extra
ordinary success of this experiment attracted aten
ton all the civilized world and, although 1t was
followed by very many impractical and unsuccessful
experiments OF a similar nature remains as the initial
success much beneficial work which since then has
been carried on both in this country and others
Later in the article the failures with the adybird
are explained as having been due TO disregarding
the fact that the vedaa the scientific name for the
insect in question "prevs only upon the futed
scale" many fruit growers having supposed "that
it would destroy any scale insect" Florida orange
growers thus had disastrous experience their cor
respondents in California having sent them specl'
mems of the beetle in a box with supply of the
futed scale for food. The pests the Floridans wish
ed TO destroy were the long scale and the purple
scale, for which the ladybird proved to have no
appetite. When the consignment reached the state
the entire contents of the box placed in an
orange grove. "The result was that the beneficial
insects died and the 1uted scale gained foothold
in Florida state in which it had before been
SEEN" DR.. Howard relates. at bred rapidly and
spread to a considerable extent for some years and
lid an appreciate amount of damage before it was
finally subdued."
H.. tails H-l,x-f l,o lody ind hos hooO S0
successful in its special field, the reasons condens
ed being that it is active while the pest it attacks
is exceedingly sluggish, it breeds two generations
in the time it takes the scale insect to produce one,
II feeds upon the eggs of its quarry and it seems to
have no enemy of its own. "Its success" DR..
Howard SAYS, ''has been more perfect than that Of
any other beneficial insect which has SO far been
tried in this international work that which comes
nearest to it being the introduction of the parasites
of the cane Ieafhoppers into Hawaii" to which he
refers Interestingly later under prominent double
subhead.
He tells of the discovery of the leafhopper upon
the sugar here about 1902 it appearing to have
been introduced with seed from Australia about
1898. 1t is recited how it spread rapidly and in
1903 damaged the crop to the extent of SIS 900 000
Experts were sent to the United States and to Aus
tralia and in the latter country parasite for the
Z
sufficiently told in the following instance "In 1907
one very large plantation whose crop had dropped
from 1884 tons in 1904 to 1920 tons in 1905 and
to S26 tons in 1906 made the next year IL $50 TONS
almost entirely the result of the parasite intro
duction." In view of some presently reported Ne
crudescences of the leafhopper in our cane fields,
there is matter of reinsurance in the following re-
marks of Dr. Howard from his personal observation
in the islands:
In August 1915 the writer visited Hawaii and found
that the situation with regard the sugar leaf
hopper almost perfect The canes not dam
aged in any respect so far could be The leaf
hoppers still present but in insignificant mum.
bers Where they had laid their eggs these al
most invariably parasitized by of the introduced
parasites There is it is true occasional reappear
Of the leafhoppers in numbers, following the des
tructien of the parasites by trashburning and the
time of this visit large plantation the island
Of Hawaii 10000 acres were so badly infested that
yield OF only onehalf of a normal crop expected.
But such "reminiscences this are, and probably
will be, fugitive.
Mention is made by DR. Howard also of other
results almost valuable accomplished in Hawaii
by the introduction of fly which il "a parasite of
the sugar cane weevil borer This he mentions wasl
found in British New Guinea by Mr. F. Muir, an ex.
pert of the sugar planters association "and after
much hardship and failure it was successfully
established in Hawaii with extraordinarily bene-
fetal results. This Hawaiian experience was des-
cribed by Representative Mann in a speech made
before congress April 22, 1916 with the introduc-
tory remark, 4 am going to narrate, very briefly
fairy story but it was true fairy story
No mention is made in the treatise under review
of the campaign in which the fruit fly is being com
hated in Hawaii with parasites introduced here
from Africa and Australia by Dr. Svestri of Italy
and Professors Bidwell and Fullaway of the terri
torial department of agriculture-a campaign in
which specialists from the federal department have
ON tha ppound-buf +I,;s or,;S