The Caldwell tribune., 1920-07-06
Many New Species Of Insects
Make Lot Of Gardens Diff
cult; Some Things Which
Should Help Solve Problem.
By CLAUDE WAKELAND


closing exercise of country school.
The last of ran something as fol-
lows:
Those jolly, jolly picnic days,
What fun within them lies
When bugs bore through the buck
skin crust
OF indigestive pies,
And various insects suicide
In pals of lemonade,
While through the custard pie
Cockroaehes slyly wade;
and lured from out their hiding hooks
BY ice creams tempting breath
The bugs and things crawl in the can
And quickly freeze to death.
No free and easy poets pen
Can adequately praise
Those old, rip roaring founts of fun
: The springtime picnic days.
Springtime too often is "picnic
time" for the insects which prey upon
our crops. With the greater acreage
being brought under production an
nually incur state, with intensive and
specialized farming becoming more
necessary to return interest on a
steadily increasing value, with irriga-
ton water playing greater part in
the production of an abundance of
succulent feed, the life OF. insects is
made correspondingly easier. In the
early days many of the native insects
found the struggle for existence more
difficult than now. The comparative
ly scarcity of food then was an inn
portant factor in preventing an alarm
ing increase and when occasional out
breaks occurred cultivated fields were
few and loss from insects was rarely
great.
Compare old conditions with those
of today. In addition to native in
sects we now have numerous other
species which have been introduced.
There are thousands of acres planted
to a single kid of crop oftentimes
many years in succession. When
food becomes scarce or natural condi-
tions unfavorable, how simple it is
for insects to migrate to cultivated
crops where food is abundant. Under
cultivated conditions food is plentiful
and they pass their life on a vertable
picnic ground where man has done
so much to make their short life in his
fields an easy one. The survival of
their kind is often assured by the
fact that they are better protected
in the weeds and waste corners on
cultivated farms than they would be
under native conditions. Z
Generally Popular Events
bug picnics" are often elaborate
affairs ad we'll attended, and are en-.
tirely free to those having the fun
The farmer pays the bills to the
amount of hundreds of thousands o
dollars annually in our state alone
Little attention is paid generally to
these "picnics' by the agriculturis
until he realizes they have reached
such an extent that he cannot feet
the insects, himself and his stock of
the same crop, then an S. O. S. i.
sent to the state university, to the
extension division or to country work
ers. "Bug picnics" occur almost sim
ultaneously over the entire state ano
the natural result is that during tn,
short time there is available for eff
fective results, workers cannot pos
sibly meet the demands made on them
Often, also it is TRUE that a cas-,
of insect attack could have been sim
ply controlled if work had been un
dertaken at the right time bat tn.
case was not reported until it was toe
late to save the crop and then th'
miraculous is expected. Under these
conditions, control of pests is yer,
uncertain, often unsatisfactory, anc
requires time in the spring of tn,
year that extremely valuable.
Under the very best of practices
insects will always exact heavy tol
from the farmer, both in the actua
loss thy cause and in the expenditur.
of money and valuable time used il
combating them. Farm practices ma,
be followed in most communities
which will serve to a large extent il
preventing loss from insects. Mos
insect attacks could be prevented o.
controlled by people generally study
ing their insects problems and cultur
al needs more closely and by following
policy of preparedness.
Rotation Essential
An apparent important fact is tina,
II IL NOT oood farm oractice to raiss