PLAGUE OF LADYBIRDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18565, 24 November 1923, Page 2 (Supplement)

PLAGUE OF LADYBIRDS.

A PROBLEM IN ESSEX.

. The ladybird, daintiest of fairy messengers, without whom no tale can be told of Titania or i —has overstepped her privileges iin and about Harold Wood, Essex- v , ' '/■■ • Fruit farmers of Harold Wood have a proper reverence for the ladybird. It would be pleasant to write that they love her because they believe the legends of her fairy commerce with the world of Puck and OlJeron, but the truth is that the ladybird is popular because she is useful. She delights the ' -Trier's soU'l hot by agreeable intelligence from fairyland, but by devouring orchard pests. . She is the implacable and the voracious foe of the rose aphis, the fruit aphis, -the woolly aphis," and all that tribe which farmers call " the blight." • ' , Nevertheless, "the farmers Of Harold "Wood hourly lift up their hands exclaiming, " Save us from our friends !" Harold Wood is smothered in ladybirds. Frames of fine gauze have been placed over doors and window's, but every morning householders sweep up hundreds of ladybirds. Ladybirds climb the walls, walk on the ceilings, explore the pots and pans, swim .in the breakfast milk, fall in the coffee, and fry themselves with the bacon.

Mr.' E. Crabbe, an entomologist, has been called to \ the aid of the farmers. His task is not easy. The farmers do not want flie ladybird destroyed. They merely wish to have her removed a respectable distance from their homes. • '