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Show ' The Insects and j , llui Farm S , Entomology is a long word, j I and entomologist a longer one: I j ' but everyone of us should study ' li i ' entomology and become entom- iw j ! ologists. That is, we should 'Mi I make as close a study as possi-Jf possi-Jf j bio of insects. I I f We see them Hying and hop-Si hop-Si ping all about us, and we hear K 1 j ' their multitudinous sounds, but It! j we know very little about them. If , ' They do enormous damage to 9,! our crops, gardens, and live-HM live-HM , 'i stock, yet most of us possess jlfl j j , very little more actual knowl-jll; knowl-jll; ' edge of them than did our an-jlj; an-jlj; i cestors before there was such a Ml " science as entomology. IjLj Dr. F. M. Webster of the De-ttjfj'i De-ttjfj'i partment of Agriculture once Hn , spent an hour in a wheat field Hi : with its owner. At the end of HJl j the hour the farmer asserted IH i that ho had been raising wheat KI tor fifty years, and hail found 1? , out during that hour that mW things were going on in the Jt way of insect operations in his Ik wheat of which he had never J I had the slightest idea. HJ j All those years ho had been HR losing money by these things of Kg -,' i which ho had no knowledge but Hi ' lj which a trained entomologist HI I . was able to tell him about and HJ i actually show him in an hour. H? An hour with a man who knows HI i is better than a half a century Hi 'I of listening to sounds, watching HI ' '"'ppings and flyings, and ac- Hf t f ctpting ancient misinformation. H i A millionaire banker and far- HJ mer once took an entomologist HJ to his 18.000 acre farm to in- HJ ventigate the ravages of a new HJ ' , insect which was destroying the HE ' corn. The ne wnisect was the well known Western corn root HE j worm, which is easily control-H control-H i led ly a proper rotation of HJ. crops. HI k Another corn grower follow- !,. "1 instructions and got rid of the corn root worm, but accus-1 accus-1 1 rd the entomologist of not know ! )i ing his business when the next 1 ' year his oats were eaten by the . army worm on the same fields. 'I Ho regarded the army worm h . and the corn root worm as the HJ '' pnmo thing. HJ, i j In one county a demonstrat- HJ , or who was trying to find out HJ j '"hat the soil, lacked for the HJ ' J I"' wmg of corn found that the HP' HHHHJHHl HbjHHHHKHHI trouble was not in the soil itself it-self but in a certain insect pest with which it was infested. The owners of the. soil had never suspected the nature of the trouble. And yet the knowledge we need is easy to get, and not hard to understand. Farm and Fire side. |