The Uses of Insects

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 24, 1878

The Uses of Insects.

We often talk about the plague of insects. They are often great plagues, but we must not forget that we owe insects a great debt of gratitude. Only a very small portion of the insect world are noxious; the others are engaged in good works for us. Some are engaged in warring against the same insect foes that we war against, and others in clearing away dead and injurious matters. On this last head an English scientific paper well says: “Insects are useful in destroying dead vegetable substances, which are even more pernicious to man than animals in the same condition; and not only the soft and succulent portions, but even the solid wood is destroyed by them. In the immense forests of the tropics, the ground would be covered, and new shoots choked up, by the ruins of trees which had fallen by accident or age, and which it would require ages to disperse without the aid of insects. But no sooner is a tree fallen than one tribe of animals cuts its bark to pieces; another bores holes in it in all directions so that the moisture from dew or rain may stand, decompose, and soften; others come in to eat off the portions that are softened, and so on, until it is entirely broken up and scattered; and this is done with such expedition that they will, in a few weeks, destroy and carry away the trunks of large trees, without leaving a particle behind; and in places where, two or three years before, there was a populous town, if the inhabitants, as is frequently the case, have chosen to abandon it, there will be a very thick wood, and not a vestige of post to be seen.”