SECOND BANQUET TO GARDENERS. 63 
every particle of floral odor wafted on the wind, — that 
these are the simple invitations to insects to make their 
fertilizing visits to flowers, without which these flowers 
would never have been. So I think that we as horticultur- 
ists owe a certain respect to this much berated science. I 
have sometimes thought that it was a wonder that every 
horticulturist, upon whose mind this fact had been borne, 
was not an entomologist also from pure gratitude, if for 
nothing else. 
But probably it is as an economic entomologist that I 
have been invited to attend this meeting; and it is very 
likely upon the other side of the question that you will ex- 
pect me to say something. And I must confess, on behalf 
of the favorite objects of my official existence, that they 
are not all of this kind; that they are not all permanent 
aids to agriculture. Some of them do have a vexatious 
habit of reaping where they do not sow, and of levying a 
burdensome tax upon the plant, for which they make no 
return. We must acknowledge that. You will not per- 
haps expect an essay or an address upon the subject of 
economic entomology here. This is not the time or the 
place for it. And yet there is one general idea, which it 
seems to me is not entirely inappropriate to the purpose of 
this gathering, which I would like to illustrate by a simple 
point or two. If we scan the various measures of defense 
which, as agriculturists, we use against insects, I think we 
shall be pleased to notice that some of the most impor- 
tant of them are simply applications of the methods by 
which plants themselves have in the long course of evolu- 
tion learned to defend themselves against their enemies. 
For example, when you fumigate your hot houses, what do 
you do but to apply everywhere, and bring to bear upon 
every plant in the conservatory, that device, that method 
of defense, that chemical principle, which a single plant 
has learned to elaborate in its own tissues as a defense 
against its enemies? When you sprinkle your rose bushes 
with hellebore, what do you except to provide these defense- 
