PLAGUE OF CATERPILLARS

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2399, 14 January 1909, Page 2

PLAGUE OF CATERPILLARS

EXTENSIVE RAVAGES; IX CANTERBURY. [Puess Association.] » . CH I? ISTCH UR C/M Jn 11 . 13.. There is a plague of caterpillars iu North Canterbury, quite Egyptian in virulence. Whole districts have been attached from (Cheviot down to Amberley, the e iterpjllavs attacking tin' grain stalks .iust below the ears, which fall over and* fail to ripen fast. Grass is attacked as well, as grain, the caterpillars moving .in dense masses from one paddock to imother. Small birds, hitherto supposed to-feed on .these, insects, appear to let them severely alone. At any rate what they eat has no appreciable effect in reducing the pest. Only starlings seem to busy themselves yin eating the, caterpillars. The nostion is very serious.-anil the loss to forms affected by the pest is enormous. No such virulent- plngin has been experienced in the district within the.memory of the oldest farm or. FORMER PLAGUTES OF CATERPILLARS. MIGHTY. RAVAGING ARMIES. ■ I-n his pamphlet "Our Ecu there < I Immigrants,” Mr. James Drummond, F.L.S., in discussing the evidence for and against introduced birds iu New Zealand, gives the following graphic description of the ravages of caterpillars in this country in by-gone years: About forty years ago this country was smitten with blasting plagues of insects, which crawled over the land in vast hordes. The gathering of the caterpillars was a sight that caused consternation to agriculturalists. They came not in regiments anil battalions, hut in mighty armies, devouring crops as they passed aloug and leaving fields as hare as if seed, had not been sown. In the Auckland district one settler kept a paddock closed up for a short time in order to place some young stock in it, but when he completed liis purchases he was astonished to find that the grass in the paddock .had disappeared. In the same province a settler who was driving a dray along the road drove through a colony of caterpillars which happened' to be crossing the- road at the time. They were present in such countless numbers that the wheels of' his dray ran in a puddle, caused by the crush ing of the insects. A Press Association telegram published in- the leading New Zealand newspapers about that time stated that the morning and evening trains between Maverier and Xuktimaru, on the way to Wanganui, were brought to a standstill owiug to countless thousands of caterpillars being on the rails, which hrkl to bo swept and sanded before the trains could coni inue their journeys. In the neighborhood of Turakina. in the Rangitikei district, an army of caterpillars, hundreds of thousands strong, was overtaken bv a train as the insects wore crossing the rails to reach a field of oats. Thousands were crushed under the wheels of the engine, and the train suddenly stopped. If. was found that the wheels had become so greasy that they revolved without advancing, as they could not grasp the rails. Thu guard and the engine-driver placed sand, on the rails, and a start was made. It was found, however, that during the stoppage the caterpillars had crawled in thousands over the engine. inside and outside. A Jla w lie's Rev gentleman who filled in one of the circulars states that eulerjiil’ars have covered his paddocks so thickly as to give color to the pasture, even from a distance, and it was considered worth while to drive a mob of sheep backwards and forwards over the insect* in order to destroy them. At Diinsaiulel, North Canterbury, crops of oats of (50 or 70 bushels were completely threshed by caterpillars. A Dunsandel farmer .says: “I have been forty years in Canterbury. J have had some bail work done by birds, but f have also seen some bad work done by caterpillars. I once saw caterpillars corning out of one man’s paddock and crossing the road nto another man’s paddock. I made all haste to tell the man threatened, anil we got IGOO sheep on the road and killed the insects. The road was black with them, and as the warm weather came on the smell was .something awful.” Testimony is also given by Dr. C. Morten Anderson, of Christchurch, who slates that twenty-five years ago an old farmer in the Amberley district-, North Canterbury, showed him a splendid crop of wheat, and said that he had seen just as fine a crop twenty years previously destroyed by caterpillars. The numbers of the insects increased with what they fed upon, and they marched from field to field in grand processions, leaving behind them the abomination of desolation. It was clear to the settlers ft)at if the disastrous condition of affairs continued it, would be useless to attempt to carry on agriculture and horticulture, as operations in that direction would mean that insects, not men. and women, would be fed. The armies,of insects had to bo fought back. In places large ditches were dug to stop the creatures’ progress. Some of the native birds, performed good service in eating, the insects. Prominent among .these birds were gulls, terns, kingfishers, oyster-catchers, native larks. white-eyes, fantails, bell-birds, and grey ' warblers. At first the kingfishers seemed to m-

crease rapidly with agriculture, and were -regarded for a. time as flic agriculturalists’ best friend?. The native birds, however, would not dwell' with men, and when..the native bush was destroyed in the vicinty of settlement they retreated further hack, and only visited the'insect-laden fields occasionally. As a means/of adequately dealing with the insect pest they wore -not worth considering. The settlors then turned their- attention to the inscct-oating birds they had known in the Old Country. Acclimatisation sicieties wore formed, and steps were taken to introduceEnglish birds.