Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1902 — WHAT THE INSECTS COST US. [ARTICLE]

WHAT THE INSECTS COST US.

Losses to Crops Caused by the Per' nictous Little Peets. The chinch-bug caused a loss of $30.000,(XX) in 1871, upward of $100,000,000 in 1874, and in 1887, $60,000,000. The Rocky Mountain locust, or grasshopper, In 1874 destroyed $100,000,000 of the crops of Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and lowa, and the indirect less was probably as much more. For many years the cotton caterpillar caused au annual average loes in the Southern States of $15,600,000, while in 1868 and 1873 tlie loss reached $30,000,000. Tlie ‘fly-weevil, our most destructive enemy to stored grains, particularly throughout the South, iuflicts an annual loss In the whole country of $40,(XX),000. The codling-moth, the chief ravager of the apple and pear crops, destroys every year fruit valued at $30,000,000 to $40,000,000. The damage to livestock Inflicted by the ox-bot, or oxWorblc, amounts to $36,000,000. Those are fair samples of the enormous money losses produced in one country by a few of the pigmy captains of pernicious Industry whose iKists operate In tlie granaries, fields, stock farms, and the stock yards of our country. What is the grand total? B. D. Walsh, one of the best entomologists of his day, In 1867, estimated the total yearly loss in the United States from insects to be from $300,1000,000 to $460,000,000. In 1890, C. V. long chief of the division of entdmolog.i" estimated the loss at $3W.000.000. Dr. James Fletcher, In 1891, footed up tlie toss to about one-tenth of our agricultural products—s33o,ooo,OQO! In 1899, E. Dwight Sanderson, after careful consideration of the whole field, put the annual loss at s3oo,ooo,ooo.—Harper’s Magazine. A woman who ever taught school will hate a school board twenty years afterward. No difference how well you play the game of life, you are sure to lose.