The Caterpillar Club of Skagit County
A dedicated teacher organizes students into an orchard-saving force, illustrating the era's civic-minded approach to agricultural pests.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A school teacher in the Cedardale District of Skagit County organized a caterpillar club to combat orchard pests. Last spring, when the trees were full of tent caterpillars, the teacher incentivized children to bring in tents. The boy who brought the most was awarded $1.00, the second 50c, and all who brought over 100 tents received 25c. The teacher burned the tents in the kitchen stove or by the roadside. The result of the contest was the destruction of 2,731 tents. Tommie Day, age 12, won first prize with 695 tents; Leonard Lamping, 13, won second with 681; and Henry Burkland, 10, won third with 467. The project helped the children understand community benefit and contributed to the health of the local orchards.
“I knew and so did the boys that the money would never pay for the effort, but they talked over in an important way the great benefit it would be to the community.”
While modern integrated pest management would frown upon the manual labor of children, the 'Bug Club' reflects an era of intense local community engagement in agricultural health. It highlights a time when the rural schoolhouse served as the central node for collective action against threats to the local economy.
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