OF WASHINGTON. 



efficacious in preventing excessive damage by insects affecting 

 forests may be true, but even here it is to be questioned if the 

 results are much more favorable than often occur on this conti 

 nent under similar conditions. 



That there are insect outbreaks of a serious nature in Europe 

 goes without saying, but, in the main, they are local, and usually 

 die out naturally after two or three years. These remarks do not 

 apply to the two great insect scourges of southern Europe, viz., 

 the Phylloxera and the locusts, the former now infesting most of 

 the vine regions of Europe, and the latter being often destructive 

 to crops in southern Europe and northern Africa. Nevertheless, 

 the general effect, and a very strong one, which the examination 

 of the conditions made on the writer was that Europe is singularly 

 free from damage by insects. For example, where a few scale in 

 sects were discovered or pointed out by local entomologists, they 

 were so few in number and insignificant altogether as to be hardly 

 worth considering, except as an indication of their actual presence, 

 with attendant possibility that they might become destructive at 

 some future time. 



In the matter of the treatment of destructive insects it would 

 appear, also, that we have little to learn or to gain from a study 

 of the European methods, for the simple reason that injury is so 

 much less frequent and less serious that wholesale and radical 

 methods of control, such as are often necessary here, are seldom 

 or never employed. This applies especially to the scale insects. 



In estimating the value of this hurried examination of the con 

 dition of affairs in applied entomology in southern Europe, the 

 writer personally sees the greatest benefit, perhaps, in being able 

 to more correctly appreciate the facts of climate, forest growth, 

 and methods of culture of fruits, etc., obtaining there, or, in other 

 words, to exchange the hazy ideas formerly had of European 

 conditions for more accurate knowledge. Without personal ac 

 quaintance it is out of the question, except in a general way, to 

 get an intelligent grasp of methods of work followed in Europe, 

 or to determine their applicability to our own conditions, which, 

 while apparently often similar, are frequently altogether different. 



In discussing the address, Mr. Fernow said that in his opinion 

 the retiring president had taken too optimistic a view of the insect 



