1894-] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 249 



DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY. 



Edited by Prof. JOHN B. SMITH, Sc. D., New Brunswick, N. J. 



Meeting of the Association of Economic Entomologists. The Sixth Annual 

 Meeting of this Association was held at Brooklyn, N. Y., Aug. 14 and 

 15, 1894, and was an extremely profitable one to those who attended. 

 The attendance was comparatively small, however, and only five States 

 were represented. Even the local collectors were in small numbers, and 

 altogether the attendance did not exceed twenty-five. 



Mr. L. O. Howard presided, and opened the meeting by reading his 

 Presidential address on "The Rise and Present Status of Official Economic 

 Entomology." The paper was historical in character and traced the rise 

 of Official Entomology from Mosaic times, finding also several scriptural 

 descriptions of insect injury. Special attention was given to the develop- 

 ment of the economic side of the science in our own country, and the 

 peculiar conditions favoring this development were recorded. In some 

 of the older European countries information concerning insects is so wide- 

 spread and so general that no special officer is needed. However, in almost 

 all parts of the world special investigations are now making and every- 

 where governments are appreciating the importance of such work. Up to 

 the present time America is in advance in economic entomology, but it will 

 require hard work, in the opinion of the reader, to maintain that position 

 in the future. 



The first paper of the session was read by John B. Smith, on "Some 

 Experiments with Carbon bisulphide as an Insecticide." Mr. Smith re- 

 counted a series of experiments made to destroy melon lice, covering the 

 hills with bowls and evaporating one dram of the bisulphide in a graduate 

 or shallow dish. In all cases all living insects on the hills treated were 

 destroyed, without injury, except where the material was poured on the 

 ground close to the plant. He thinks this method of protecting melon 

 fields practical, because the lice do not appear all over the fields at one 

 time, but infest isolated hills or little groups of hills and spreads from 

 these points. Destroying these centres of infection early in the season 

 would mean practical exemption later on. 



Mr. Southwick spoke of using bisulphide emulsified with "polyzol" as 

 a wash for trees to kill plant-lice. Mr. Saunders suggested the use of 

 "protection cloth" to cover the hills to be treated or of paper plant- 

 covers, sold by seedsmen. Mr. Galloway explained an observed effect 

 of the bisulphide in causing water globules to appear on the leaves as due 

 to the rapid lowering of temperature caused by the bisulphide. 



A paper on "Spraying without a Pump" was presented from Mr. J. M. 

 Aldrich, and suggested that where water pressure is available a nozzle 

 could be used into which a small jet of the insecticide could be led to be 

 carried out and mixed in the spray caused by the water pressure. 



