Manual of vegetable-garden insects . application was not to beobtained. The first dusting and spraying machines werecrude, clumsy and generally inefficient. If one considers theenormous hordes in which the beetles appeared and the com-pleteness with which they defoliated the plants in the newlyinfested areas, some idea can be gained of the serious situationthat confronted the potato-growers of this period. In the newly occupied territory the beetles found few oftheir natural enemies and, therefore, for a time multipliedunchecked. In their eastward advance they moved througha region which was t
Manual of vegetable-garden insects . application was not to beobtained. The first dusting and spraying machines werecrude, clumsy and generally inefficient. If one considers theenormous hordes in which the beetles appeared and the com-pleteness with which they defoliated the plants in the newlyinfested areas, some idea can be gained of the serious situationthat confronted the potato-growers of this period. In the newly occupied territory the beetles found few oftheir natural enemies and, therefore, for a time multipliedunchecked. In their eastward advance they moved througha region which was thickly settled, where their food was grownin great abundance and in a climate to which they easilyadapted themselves. They were aided in their rapid advance 144 MANUAL OF VEGETABLE-GARDEN INSECTS by the prevailing west and southwest winds during the seasonwhen the beetles were on the wing. The rapid spread of theColorado potato beetle across the eastern United States hashad no equal in historic times, except possibly in the case of. Fig. 81. — Eggplant killed by the Colorado potato beetle. the recent advance of the cotton boll-weevil through the cottonbelt of the southern states. After reaching the Atlantic Coast in 1874, the potato beetlegradually extended its range southward east of the Appa-lachian Mountains, but northern Florida was not invadeduntil about 1900. The advance down the Mississippi Valley POTATO INSECTS 145 had also been slow and the beetles did not appear in centralLouisiana until al)out the same date. The potato beetle isnow generally distributed east of the Rocky Mountains fromMontana to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and southwardto northern Florida. It also occurs in New ^Mexico and Ari-zona and in Idaho, Washington and Alberta. Where thepotato is not available for food, the beetles will sometimesattack eggplant (Fig. 81), tomato, pepper and even cherry, thorn apple, henbane, Jamestown weed, horsenettle, belladonna and petunia also serve to
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublishernewyo, bookyear1918
