Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1878 — DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS. [ARTICLE]

DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS.

Prof. Riley’s Report on tlie Locust—His Bureau at Work to Save #150,000,000 Lost Annually by Insects. [Washington Cor. New York Tribune.) Prof. Riley, the Government Entomologist recently appointed to the Agricultural Department, is engaged on tne last pages of his report as Chief of the Entomological Commission appointed last year by Congress to make special investigations concerning the Colorado locust. The brief paper upon the subject read by the professor before the Academy of Sciences, which recently met in this city, attracted an attention which gives proof of the interest of the forthcoming report. The Entomological Bureau has existed in name for the last fifteen years, but, until the present time, it has contributed very little to our knowledge of insects. The law establishing it has been practically a dead letter. It is now proposed by the department to make this bureau one of the most active and useful if possible. Since his recent installment in the office of Government Entomologist, Prof. Riley has begun work with the view of securing large and immediate practical results for the benefit of agriculture throughout the United States. One of the chief functions of his bureau will be the investigation of the habits of insects injurious to all sorts of crops, and of the remedies against them. It is estimated that the annual loss to agriculture in the United States, from destructive insects, is not less than §150,000,000. Specimens of these insects are constantly being sent to the department from every part of the country, with requests for directions for their destruction. Prof. Riley asserts that in every instance, if a proper investigation could be made, an effectual remedy of extermination might be found. One of the most recent of these requests is from an lowa farmer cultivating an orchard of several thousand apple trees, which he says have been rendered non-productive for several years past by the ravages of a worm. The specimen sent to the department is that of a worm entirely new to science and demanding, for the interests of Western fruit growers, immediate investigation. The loss from the ravages of the cotton worm alone in the Southern States has sometimes amounted to §20,000,000 in a single fortnight. Until the present session of Congress no adequate steps had been taken for the investigation and eradication of this pest. It is asserted now that the $5,000 recently appropriated for the employment of a special entomologist for this purpose would have been much more advantageously expended by the Bureau of Entomology itself, inasmuch as the appropriation will be almost entirely consumed by the salary of the entomologist, leaving next to nothing for the cost of experiments. Under the eare of the Entomological Bureau, the Department of Agriculture is at present feeding several thousand French and Japanese silk worms.