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CHAPTER VI
                    PLANT LICE
"PLANT lice! Ugh," you say, "who wants to read about
those nasty things! All I want to know is how to get rid
of them." Yes, but the very fact that those soft green
bugs that cover your roses, your nasturtiums, your cab-
bages, and your fruit trees at certain seasons reappear
so persistently, after you think you have exterminated
them, shows that they possess some hidden source of
power; and the secrets of a resourceful enemy are at least
worth knowing-besides, they may be interesting.
  Really, however, insects are not our enemies; they are
only living their appointed lives, and it just happens that
we want to eat some of the same plants that they and their
ancestors have always fed on. Our trouble with the in-
sects is just that same old economic conflict that has bred
the majority of wars; and, in the case between us and the
insects, it is we who are the aggressors and the enemies of
the insects. We are the newcomers on the earth, but we
fume around because we find it already occupied by a host
of other creatures, and we ask what right have they to be
here to interfere with us! Insects existed millions of
years before we attained the human form and aspirations,
and they have a perfectly legitimate right to everything
they feed on. Of course, it must be admitted, they do not
respect the rights of private property; and therein lies
their hard luck, and ours.
  The plant lice are well known to anyone who has a
garden, a greenhouse, an orchard, or a field of grain.
Some call them "green bugs"; entomologists usually call
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