New Britain Herald Newspaper, June 4, 1926, Page 27

No Race Suicide! SCIENTISTS in the Bureau of Entomology, Department of Agricul- ture, tell us that it has been reckoned that one kind of aphis, developing thirteen generations in a single year, would, if unchecked to the end of the twelfth gener- ation, have multiplied to the inconceivable number of ten sextillions of indi- viduals. They would fill an ocean, It has also been calcu- lated that one pair of gZypsy moths would produce enough progeny in eight years to destroy all the foliage in the United States, Assingle pair of potato bugs would, under ideal condi- tions, increase in one season to 60,000,000. By J.Herbert Duckworth CENSUS is being taken of the abun- dance of insect pests in the United States. The existence, dwelling places, dis- tribution and summer and winter occu- pations of hundreds of billions of flying, crawling and creeping things are being carefully reported by hundreds of “cen- sus takers” throughout the country. Certhin facts are recorded on punch cards, N e then automatically sorted, d and tabulated on a ma- chine similar to that used by the Census Bureau. The survey is being made by the Bureau of Entomology of the Depart- ment of Agriculture. This the first time a job like this has been undertaken anywhere in the world. started for the benefit of the fa is also of very great practical interest to all those who have who every summer are com- pelled to stand helpless and watch their roses, cabbages, pansies and peas dis- appear under the mass attacks of bat- talions o Man gines himself to be the do nant power on earth. He is nothing of the sort. The true lords of the universe are the insects. Man has attained to a predominance over the m fierce and powerful mammals, but in the face of an attack of insects he and all his works are set at naught. he number of insect species is aston- ishing, and their power of multiplica- tion amaz The number of insect species is ater by far than that of the species of ali other living creatures combined. THE chinch bug, a destruetive Ameri- can pest, has been found in a clump of grass eight inches in diameter to the number of The progeny of this colony alone, if left alone, would soon become incomputable hordes, devastating wide areas of the earth’s surface. If every egg of the grasshopper were per- I and come to maturity, s would be too dreadful to contemplate. The possible produc- tion of offspring by one pair of cotton- boll weevils has been mated at 1 755,100, British naturalist has ascer- tained mathematically that two vinegar maggots could multiply in one year into a mass that could cover the peninsula of Ind i lepth of mile. The vora i insects is almost as astounding powet of reproduc- tion, T} i ation in leaves of a catery q to twice its own weight. vere to feed at the same 14t have to eat a ton of hay every r r hours, Only 1} nade a detailed tud. f ppreciate the alture in th» Howard, ento- the Bureau of vriter that C. L. Assistant Chief, had cause a re- duction 10 per cent of the crops a harvested This means that with an annual erop value, such as that of 4, totaling for farm, fruit and garden crops nearly $13,000,000,000, the loss to these farm crops alone would represent consider- ably over $1,000,000,000. In addition to this there iz a very large loss to livestock from such pests as biting flies, parasitic flies, tickg, mites, ete. The following table gives the value of certain plant products for 1924 with the losses chargeable, according to Mr, Mar- latt, to various insect pests: 20,000, damage United mologist i ef of Marlatt Percentage Amount of Loss of Loss 2,000,000 00,000 Product Cereals Cotton Values £5,220,000,000 1,100,000,000 170,000,000 10,004 100,000 400,000,000 sugar Crope Another point o can be gained view of insect losses by making an estimate ‘BUGS" Insects of the U. S. A. Being Counted Off by Department of Agriculture in Order That Scientists May Know More About the Habits and Habitats of These Voracious Pests That Annually : of the average annual destruction oc- casioned by individual insects or classes of insects. This individual responsi- bility is illustrated in the following table, which relates to some fourteen' of the most voracious insects: Chinch Bug, Grasshopper Hessian F Corn Root Worm Corn Ear Wortn Cotton«Boll Weevil...... Coddling Moth of Apple. . Army Worr otton-Boll in Waevil Jose Scale. ... Cotton-Leaf Worm...... Potato Bug... i Cabbage Worm. ... §80,000,000 50,000,000 Worm 8,000,000 6,000,000 HE work of the Insect Pest the organization engaged in this co. lossal task of compiling insect statis- ties, is being carried on under the direc- tion of J. A. Hyslop. “The object of the survey,” explained Mr. Hyslop to the writer, “is to collect accurate and detailed information on the oceurrence, distribution, ecology, and relative destructi ss of insect pests throughout the United States, and to study this data from month to month, and year to vear, with relation to the several factors that influenced insect abundance, “A survey of this nature, carried on for a number of years, will, we believe, throw light on many more or Jess obsture rea- sons for certain in- sect-pest phenomena. We may find, for in- stance, the reasons {or the cyclie appear. < of certain pests, gradual shift of regions of destructive abunda the limit- ing barriers to nor- mal dispersal, the di- rective influences that determine the paths of insect diffusion, by studying the relation of climatology, geog- topography, as_ well as ological com- to insect distri- and abundance. “This is the necessary foundation, [ may point out, for the next decisive advance in economic entomology—ento- mological forecasting. “In making this exhaustive survey, we e utilizing the entomological agen- cies now existing in a number of Statee We have on our foree of co virtually all aborators the entomologists of the State Agricultural Experiment Sta. tions, State Agricultural Colleges, State Departments of Agriculture, State Uni- versities, Plant Boards and tural Commissions, “This force is augmented by the De- partment of Agriculture’s entomologists at the many field stations maintained by the Bureau of Entomology in all parts of the country. “At the present time there ars fifty- seven official entomologists acting as regular collaborators of the survey The total number of reporters, however, is many times this numbe ally every collaborator has from one to as high as twenty assistants, all of whom are transmitting notes for the survey's files. “We have already in these files records of nearly 2000 different species Horticul- as virtu- Worth of Our Choicest The Hercules beetle of the West Indies, at the left, is harmle center is the phyllium of India, as ferocious as of insects reported as being of more or less economic importance. These in- sects represent virtually all of the major orders and fall into 1194 genera “One of the outstanding features of it appea the survey movement has been the im petus given to methods of counting and estimating insect abundance. “The survey is now working on a project to incorporate in its files all of An endless army of bugs, whose number is now known, is pass in review census takers un- scheduled to before hich the from two y is the most inju in the 1 th ppi River avaraged ab years a toll )0 has been attrac other some » his to the n addition ch require it the cotton plant 1 neans of erside of b or principal » other sion often side of leaflet the ed wit re and the giant claw is only for show, for it cannot be opened. In the the on economie ing w lished in the take will distributional and data past. This, irse, many years, but 1 completed make available the greatest mass wil s, and the tiger beetle, at right, looks all that its name implies The weet This liquid is greatly desired by many insects, and is the means tton plant a great e worst cotton pest in this country robably the most destructive cotton in the world is the Mexican cotton- annually takes a toll lions of dollars from the boll wee of tens of The losses caused by the boll weevil are both direct and indirect and extend throughout virtually the entire financial and economic structure of the cotton belt It is impossible to estimate the losses due to depreciated land values, closing down of cotton gins and oil mills and other indirect results of the weevil in- vasi All estimates have been made entirely on the b of direct losz in nonproduction of cot lint and seed The annual direct antl indirect loss is now well in excess of $200,000,000. Vir- r ce f the cotton belt is nfested by the weevil, and this area s 96 per c f the cotton crop f the cotton belt of the United States ature has provided several means of preventing excessive multiplication of the weevil. The most conspicuous of these are heat and insects that prey upon the weevil. The known parasitic enemies of the weevil number forty-five. ST ATISTICS assembled by the Burean of the Census in 1919 indicate that 163,000,000 square feet in covered by green ames and sashes, de- growing of ornamental [he income from hese houses was 000,000, or vir represented flow The annual ck for the period be conservatively esti per cent of the value of more than $6,000,000 were d vegetables, Who or ravening these over- the what is it prevents from onsuming hordes of insects earth an all? running food su of It is not man the use of applied poisons, which are (the capital invested in the and fungicide manufacturing t $100,000,000), unnatu- 74 13, is able to repel to an he attacks on his orchard and mechanical expensive icide business is a the fields and in the forests he before great eruption of a panic-stricken fugitive. disease, or the weather or fungi, or parasitic and pre- s within their own ranks. arge may be the share of 1 agencies in experience has is lamentably insufficient. ? The bird. Bird life, predominating insect is the most indispensable balancing e in nature. For some years prior to 1877 vast numbers of red-winged blackbirds wers poisoned in the spring and autumn around the cornfields of Nebraska. This done in the belief that the black- birds were damaging the crops, espe- cially the wheat. Great numbers of prairie chicken, quail, plover and various sther insect-eating species were de- stroyed at the same time by eating the poisoned grain. Then came 1877, and with it Nemesis. The locusts appeared in There were no birds and Nebraska mourned. a common practice with all in a country at once to killing the native birds in & itless and foolhardy manner. stupid practice is all the more deplorable, because an enormous in- erease of insect pests invariably attends ions of the pioneer agrieul- nding in cultivated crops new » succulent sources of food su change their primitive habits 1 multiply exceedingly upon fields of man’s creation. some unaccountable reason, the the butterfly chaser—al- n a more or less popular species of the genus man Yet it would is really a first line of defense. He stands ever on the watch between the us that hungry creep- ise progress, if not halted, would result in the world being denuded of all growing things—a universal dis- aster, the extinction of mankind, Copyright by Public Ledger reason of countless numbers. to eat them It is settlers new own as the m that the e part of our remainder of ing host w} 52" o "ElE]