Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1915 — Bugs That Eat Bags. [ARTICLE]

Bugs That Eat Bags.

We hardly realize that $250,000,000 a year, or about $5,000,000 a week, is spent directly and indirectly in trying to check the ravages of the insect pests that prey on the crops. Besides this, the pests eat, according to government estimates, about $800,000,000 worth of food annually, which brings their cost up to over $1,000,000,000 a year clear loss. In every state effective war is waged on these pests. But the result is not seen in a diminished loss. Every weapon known to science is employed. But no sooner is a particular pest conquered in one part of the country than it appears in another. Emphasis has been placed in recent years on insect-destroying birds, ana these are being protected in all kinds of ways. Laws against the use of bird feathers on hats are part of this protection, and in many states forest areas have been established as bird refuges. Science has also attacked the problem of breeding insects to destroy other insects. The melon aphis, for example, used to cost the melon growers in one California vailed $5,00(1,000 a year. The lady bug, it was found, devoured the aphis. So lady bugs were collected arid kept in cold storage. About 2,GOO pounds were gathered in certain canyons of the Sierras, each pound representing about 25,000 bugs. They bred prodigiously. It was found that 50$00 of them would keep twenty acres of melons free of the aphis and other plant lice. As a result, bumper crops have since been raised. So now scientists are studying the problem of hugs to eat bugs, which shall in themselves be ham. less to the crops. And thus the battle for the crops goes on yearly, and never before, perhaps, with such success or with such general application. —Popular Mechanics.

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