Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-06-26
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

of pre-Columbian days have acquired
more expensive tastes-the plum
curculio, for example, taking greed
lily to peaches. cherries and apples.
Our immigrant pests include the
gypsy moth, which scientist
brought IN so years ago. He was go.
ing to study the interesting insect
and train it to make silk. but it got
away from him and now threatens
to get away with most of the
orchards of the East. The same
thing accounts for the Japanese
beetle, which entered without an i'm
migration quota, being hidden in an
iris root. Now it is a burden upon
society to the extent of 100000 a
year.
But science is making a bold fight.
The sphynx moth, with it's proboscis
3 inches long, has habit of polk
ing its nose around where 1t is not
wanted, especially in tobacco fields or
tomato gardens. Now farmers put a
bit of cobalt down the corollas of the
blossoms the moth likes best, and
since the real blossoms wilt under
the cobalt, they use porcelain imi-
tations. and the moths do not know
poison.
But crops are dependent on certain
insect attendants. No bee or other
insect can get its proboscis into the
bloom of red clover Who will breed
such a bee that can do so? He will
thus make two blooms of clover to
grow where but one grew before
through artificial Characterization
Two? Millions! Such a bee would
bring more wealth than Henry Ford
could count.
Not all the scientists of the bureau,
of which DR.. Howard is chief, share
his pessimistic fears, but they say
science is indeed winning the battle.
1t is not a war with pixies nor with
arrows, any more than was the World
War. 1t is chemical warfare. and in
the battles the command is for chemi-
cal sos by aviation reserves.
Within the last two years, there has
been an actual revolution in the
methods of combating insect enemies
as great an evolution as the develop
ment of the gas-motor gang-plow over
the crooked stick. What the modern
combined harvester and thresher is.
compared with the sickle and the
| fail, comes now a. greater advance
in the specialized airplane, laden with
calcium arsenate to dust the cotton
| fields and destroy the boil weevil.
Spraying adds So to SIS an acre to
the yield.
A mere experiment of four years
ago has developed into a commercial
and agricultural success within the
last two seasons. One outfit sprays
1000 acres in less than two hours. It's
| distribution is more effective than
that of any other method. more eco.
OF to- oil Nd ct
per season, no more expensive to the
farmer than ground-machine spray
| ing. 1t solves the labor and mule
problem, where that was great prob
lem-for, instead of hundreds Of
laborers and mules, for just a
few days year, one machine,
| manned by two men, covers 500
acres an hour on larger farms, or
| 24O acres on limited areas. 1t makes
no difference how muddy the fields
may be, which would prevent ground
spraying, the airplanes fly over the
farms within 10 to rs feet Of the
ground at a speed Of from 80 to 80
miles an hour. It requires super.
| feet under the machines, a mile a
minute, without scraping the earth
and crashing to death.
Thus agriculture has been made
| over, within the last two years, and
| takes a new lease on life. The same
methods of cubic farming in place of
plane geometry. will apply to the
| lighting. of all orchard pests. forest
destroyers, and every other evil crea.
ture which can be killed by poisonous
sprays.
Modern agriculture dates only half
century from the use of steampower
on the farms: post-modern agriculture
will date from 1924 with the addition
Of the airplane as farm implement.
| What a span between the peasant of
the crooked stick plow and the fail
and alert modern aviator-agriculturt
But what are we going to do with
our great SURPRISES when, by aviation,
ultra-modern production becomes
general? "Dr. Howard: Front and
center" -.
Copyright. 1925. by Ps& v. colins)