Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/442

438 If, therefore, congress, through these agencies, is preventing the introduction of human and animal diseases and noxious animals, and their interstate movement, and eradicates or controls them in sections where their presence threatens the commerce and welfare of other states, why may not the spread of imported insect pests dangerous to plants be similarly regulated? The writer has studied the principles involved with some care and fails to see that those concerning insect pests of domestic animals and plants are not identical.

An interesting phase of the whole discussion arises from the recent convention of the southern states, which passed resolutions, not only praying congress that the national government take charge of all quarantines, but that it proceed to the extermination of the yellow-fever mosquito. Whether extermination of this pest is possible or not I am not informed. From experience with other insects it would seem doubtful. There can be no question, however, that to control yellow fever the breeding of Stegomyia fasciata must be prevented. In the control of yellow fever, the federal government would therefore have a perfect right to proceed against this insect as a menace to human health. We have then the anomalous condition that the national government can control the introduction and spread of insects which affect the health of man and the domestic animals, but that it has no laws against those affecting crops or plant life. Is not the loss to plant life from insect pests far greater than to animal life? How do the values of animal and plant products compare? According to the report of the secretary of agriculture for 1905, the domestic animals of the United States are worth $2,995,370,277 in 1904. There are no figures as to the exact value of animal products, but estimating a similar increase from 1900, they would be worth approximately $2,000,000,000. The total value of farm products are estimated by the secretary for 1905 at $6,415,000,000. Plant products would therefore be worth approximately $4,415,000,000, the ten staples alone being worth $3,515,000,000, while the value of all domestic animals and their products would be $4,885,572,394. In brief, the plant products are more than twice the value of the animal products and nearly equal in value both the live animals and the products they produced. These estimates include the value of the products of so-called 'farm forests' but do not include the value of lumber or the virgin forests not on farms, conservatively estimated to be worth from three to four billion dollars, nor is the inestimable value of city shade trees and parks considered.

The losses occasioned by insects, exclusive of those to animals and stored products, have recently been estimated by Mr. C. L. Marlatt at $520,000,000, which is entirely conservative.

We would venture the assertion, therefore, that the annual losses occasioned by imported insect pests far exceed all losses of animals from