THE INSECT PESTS OF AMERICA

Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2067, 6 October 1885, Page 4

THE INSECT PESTS OF AMERICA

We aro apt sometimes (leuurk* the Titnaru Herald )to think ourselves hardly used in this colony m the matter of insect pests. We certainly have quite as many ad we should lie inclined to a-<k for if we had tlie ordering of them, but in this lespcet as in s) in my others America, it a-ppoirs, is ([iiite prepirol to " whip creition," Any body who wants to know what the United States can produce for the instruction of the entomologist, and tho litter discomfiture of the f miwrs should 1 cart a rPCJiit article on the subject in the Nineteenth Century. It h estimated by the Government that the annuil cost to that country of the plague of injects is upwards of fifty million pounds. Thera are about ten thousand species of two winded flies, and about an orjml numi>or of moths and butterflies. Moths and buttei flies, of course, mean grubs and citerpillerd, and those ofthe United States, both in regard to number and appetite, are said to be simply unapproachable in any other part of the world. Then there are several thousand species of grasshoppers, dragonflies, caddu flies, etc., and ton thousand kinds of booties and "bugs." Tho lastnamed item sounds particulaily horrifying, but in America of corrse the word is not restricted in its moaning as it is in England to what a little girl called "Tho pestilence that walkoth in darkness." On the contrary, it is a term of all-embracing significance. Our American cousins playfully call tho firefly the "lightning bug," and the busy bee is degraded into the " sting-bug," which probably accounts for its being much more vindictive in its manners in ths States than it is elsewhere. Altogether, it is estimated there are about 50,000 different kinds of winged creatures in the country referred to, preying on the crops of the farmer. Besides these, there are hosts of millepedes, centipedes, mites, ticks, and an endless variety whose names are terribly expressive, though fortunately, for the most part, unfamiliar to English ears. The creatures most dreaded by the farmers, we are told, are tho various cut-worms, the joint-worm, the canker-worm, the cotton worm, the chinch bug, Hessian fly, wheat midge, wheat fly, northern army worm, Hpindle-worms, stalk borers, wireworms, corn-weevils. Colorado potato beetle, helmet-beetle, onion fly, onion thrips, turnip beetle, cabbage butterfly, bean weevil, squash borer, squash bug, hopbine roof-borer, tobacco-worm, tent caterpillar, etc. June beetles, and strawberry crown borers attack the strawberry beds ; saw-flys and span-worms destroy the currant bushes; grape fnrestciß and vuiele.it hops aid the phylloxera in destroying the vineyards ; plum- weevils devote thpir attention to plum trees, while appleweevils prey upon apple orchards, The ravages wrought by some of these pests aie almost incredible. In 1875 a host of infamous locusts with red hind legs settled on the fertiln plains «.f Colorado, and in six weeks 300 square miles of rich cornfields were transformed into a desert. In the whole of the Grecly district there was not enough corn left for .seed, and altogether it is estimated that thiee millions of jteople were thrown into distress by this appalling visitation. The New Zealand fanner wo know has his troubles, but e\en span ows and rabbits aio infinitely piefer .able to the winger! pests of the United States.