Checking the Waste: A Study in ConservationGregory, Mary Huston
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Checking the Waste: A Study in Conservation
Gregory, Mary Huston
Conservation of natural resources; United States -- Economic conditions
Garden vegetables suffer more than anything else from insects. Potatoes
are attacked by two species of insects, both destructive unless held in
check. One is the reddish brown blister-beetle. The eggs are laid on the
ground, and do not become adult insects until the second year. The other
is the striped Colorado beetle, the eggs of which are laid on the under
side of the leaves, and develop into adults in a short time. Two broods
of this beetle develop in a single season. Thus it may be seen that the
two are entirely different, though they are often supposed to be the
same. The Colorado beetle, by the immense damage it was doing to a
necessary food crop, first led to a regular method of fighting insects
in this country. This potato-bug is not feared as it was in the past,
since farmers have learned to control it in a great measure, but they
have only been able to lessen the evil, never to drive it out
completely.
Other insects that destroy garden vegetables are the well-known green
cabbage-worm, the harlequin cabbage-bug, the cabbage hairworm, the
asparagus-beetle, the squash-bug, the squash-vine borer, the striped
cucumber or melon beetle, the melon aphis, the corn boll-worm, the
cornstalk borer and many others.
In addition to these insects that attack special plants, all vegetables
are preyed on by the grub-worm, the cutworm, the aphis and various tiny
hoppers.
The grub-worms which work about the roots of plants are, in the adult
state, the June-bugs or cock-chafers which fly about our lights in the
spring and early summer, and which themselves do considerable damage by
eating leaves of trees and bushes.
Orchards and small fruits suffer heavily from insect pests, both on
account of the direct loss and on account of the expensive treatment.
There are several hundred insects which ravage fruit trees, attacking
the roots, trunk, foliage and fruit.
Among these are the scales, of which there are many species, but of
which the most widely known and dreaded is the San Jose scale, so called
because San Jose, California, was its starting place in America. It is
the only one of the scales which, if not checked, will, in two or three
years, completely destroy the tree on which it feeds. It attacks the
citrus fruits, orange, lemon, grape-fruit, and the apple, pear, and
peach as well as small fruits, particularly currants.
Among the many varieties that do serious damage are the black olive
scale, plum scale, hickory scale, locust scale, frosted black scale, red
oak scale, the cottony maple scale, greedy scale and oyster shell
scale.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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