Is not the remedy for many evils to be found by allowing one
destructive force to overcome another? God so makes “the wrath of man
to praise him.”
One day a very small orange-tree was taken out of the ground
in Australia and sent with many others across the ocean to
California. On this small tree there were a few white insects.
The little tree was planted again in California and soon
put out many fresh, fragrant leaves. The white insects were
astonished and rejoiced that day after day went by without the
appearance of any red beetles. The white insects increased in
numbers; there were thousands of fragrant-leaved orange-trees
in California, and in a few years there were millions of white
insects in them. One morning a man stood among the trees and
said, “Confound these bugs; they’ll ruin me; what shall I do?”
and a man who knew said, “Get some red beetles from Australia.”
So this orange-grower, with some others, paid a man to go to
Australia and collect some live red beetles. The collector
went across the ocean, three weeks’ steady steaming, and sent
back a few of the voracious little beetles in a pill-box. They
were put into a tree in a California orange-orchard in which
there were many cottony-cushion scale insects. The red insects
promptly began eating the white ones; and their children and
grandchildren and great-grandchildren have kept up this eating
ever since. And so the orange-growers never tire of telling how
the red beetles (whose name is _Vedalia_) were brought from
Australia to save them from ruin by the white insects (whose
name is _Icerya_).--VERNON L. KELLOGG, “Insect
Stories.”
(2677)
=Remembering=--See FORGETTING AND REMEMBERING.
=Remembering the Good=--See OLD YEAR MEMORIES.