Silent Spring

by Rachel Carson

We are told that inoculation with milky spore disease is “too expensive”—although no one found it so in the 14 eastern states in the 1940’s. And by what sort of accounting was the “too expensive” judgment reached? Certainly not by any that assessed the true costs of the total destruction wrought by such programs as the Sheldon spraying. This judgment also ignores the fact that inoculation with the spores need be done only once; the first cost is the only cost. We are told also that milky spore disease cannot be used on the periphery of the beetle’s range because it can be established only where a large grub population is already present in the soil. Like many other statements in support of spraying, this one needs to be questioned. The bacterium that causes milky spore disease has been found to infect at least 40 other species of beetles which collectively have quite a wide distribution and would in all probability serve to establish the disease even where the Japanese beetle population is very small or nonexistent. Furthermore, because of the long viability of the spores in soil they can be introduced even in the complete absence of grubs, as on the fringe of the present beetle infestation, there to await the advancing population.