Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1875 — Weeds or Insects? [ARTICLE]

Weeds or Insects?

The troubles of life are much more evenly allotted to man and woman kind than troubled men and women are willing to admit Just now all American farmers are suffering in fact or anticipation the devastation of insects, bugs, worms or beetles. The cotton-worm in the South, grasshopper in the extreme West, the Colorado beetle now almost everywhere, constitute a triad of troubles not to be despised. Add to these, orchardists suffer from the canker-worm, coddling-moth, curculio, and gardeners from the cabbageworm, turnip flea and a host of other depredators, and it is hardly to be wondered at if American tillers of the soil and fruitf rowers deem themselves particularly uner the curse originally pronounced against Adam on his expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Our tropical American summers and sunny skies are just the weather to breed myriads of insect enemies. Our English friends are having great fears lest the Colorado potato-beetle should gain a lodgment among them. Spite of all their precautions we do not doubt that he will; but the chances are that if the Doryphora arrived in England its moist, foggy climate would prove ungenial. It would not breed fast, nor grow to maturity rapidly, and could be much more easily kept in check than here. If our climate is too favorable to insects the same dry, hot weather gives American farmers a chance that English farmers might envy to “get even” with the weeds, Damp,.cloudy, rainy days, often for weeks in succession, keep the soil moist so that the slightest root will grow. Here, if once fairly uprooted, our drying winds and bright sunshine dry them to powder. No doubt our farmers do often suffer from drought. Thorough and frequent culture will remedy that evil and prevent it from

doing any damage. In fact, we believe it is a general rule that in all good farming sections excessive drought usually does less harm than the other evil of excessive moisture. It is certainly a less dangerous enemy to good farming, which is almost always an accompaniment to good crops. American farmers, with their fine climate and the ease with which their weeds may be destroyed, ought to be the best farmers in the world. Their fields ought to be the cleanest. We have reason to hope that in time they will be. The present difficulty, with insect enemies is only temporary until the parasites which prey on the depredators can increase. Even now, troublesome as our insect pests are, we prefer all the plagues of which American farmers complain rather than a climate which by its dampness and cloudiness makes thorough farming almost a miracle ot patience and energy, —Rural New Yorker.