476 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



inality. In company with Riley, then a young man, he had planned 

 much in the way of entomological work; but one report and a few 

 vigorous papers in journals form the total of what remains to us. 



Dr. William LeBaron, his successor in office, was a much less 

 positive character, but an equally conscientious worker, and, in his 

 fourth report, began what was intended to be a popular treatise on the 

 insects, the systematic portion forming a sort of supplement to the 

 specially economic portion. Illinois is another of the states which 

 has never allowed its service to deteriorate, and there is no better work 

 now done in the United States, nor is there a more effective organiza- 

 tion than that within its limits. 



Dr. Charles V. Riley was a prime factor in the development of 

 economic entomology in the United States. His series of reports on 

 the injurious and other insects of Missouri is a model which has never 

 been exceeded in interest and value. Not the least important feature 

 of these reports is the list of illustrations — wood-cuts most of them — 

 that have never been surpassed in their fidelity to nature, and their 

 artistic merit. Most of the insects figured in Riley's reports looh 

 natural, and that is the highest praise that can be given to any figure 

 of this type. So well done are they that they have become common 

 stock and are used again and again in bulletins and reports throughout 

 the country. With his transfer to Washington his field of activity 

 was enlarged, and he became a force in the development of the prac- 

 tical side of entomological work. The real development of our present 

 battery of spraying outfits, arsenical poisons and kerosene emulsions 

 began under Riley, and the fight to secure their adoption was a more # 

 difficult one than is understood. Congress thought itself very liberal 

 when it reached the $20,000 mark for the division of entomology, and 

 when we consider the force of men that Riley gathered and trained 

 for that sum, men who form the nucleus of the division to the present 

 day, we begin to appreciate the ability of the man. 



I will not attempt to give a list of the men who were associated 

 with Dr. Riley in the development of his office at Washington; I knew 

 them all and worked with some of them for a time. And not the least 

 of Dr. Riley's ability was in getting all that there was out of his 

 assistants, in commanding their devotion and loyalty, although he con- 

 stantly quarrelled with every one of them. He was the best loved, best 

 hated, most admired and most detested man I ever knew; but he was 

 always a better friend than he was an enemjr, and never lost an oppor- 

 tunity to do a man a good turn even when he personally lost by it. 

 Economic entomology owes much to Dr. Riley and his influence is still 

 with us. I need hardly say that his successor has fully maintained 

 the standard set for him, and that there is nowhere in the world at 

 the present time a more efficient body of workers in economic ento- 



