168 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



exception of Paris green, they have been either very insufficiently tried or 

 found inoperative. That compound of arsenic and copper therefore 

 remains naturally the favorite, notwithstanding its dangerous qualities and 

 the possible deleterious effect it may produce on the fields after long use. 



Entomologists and other scientific men are often asked : " Why do 

 you not give us another remedy against this destructive insect ? Are you 

 baffled with all your boasted progress in learning by the invasion of a 

 wretched little bug ? " No, my friends, we are not baffled by the wretched 

 little bug, but in our endeavors to teach you how to dispose of it in such 

 a manner as to protect your crops, we are embarrassed by your own 

 failure to grasp the magnitude of the problem which you have set us to 

 solve. Had you indeed comprehended the warnings given by my 

 lamented friend B. D. Walsh, on the first injurious appearance of the 

 insect, and since repeated by many Entomologists, you would have 

 insisted several years ago that the subject should be investigated with a 

 power of inquiry proportioned to its importance, and you would have 

 received such information as might with proper and well directed industry 

 on your part have prevented much loss. 



However, I do not wish now to speak of the past ; it is gone and its 

 errors cannot be undone. Let us rather enquire what shall be done in 

 the future. 



The first thing, then, is to cease calling upon science for a remedy, 

 when science and empiricism have probably already given you many 

 remedies, concerning the application of which I will have a word to say 

 by-and-by. Science can help you and will help you only when you have 

 begun to help yourselves. How, then, can we begin to help ourselves ? 

 I hear you ask. First, then, there should be a scientific commission, 

 selected by competent scientific authority for their merit and not for their 

 political influence. Politicians have had too much control over our 

 agricultural interests, as you all have reason to remember with regret. 

 This commission should be sufficiently large to subdivide the subjects 

 committed to them in such mannei as to thoroughly investigate the habits 

 and times of appearance in different districts of the great agricultural 

 pests, the effect upon them of all the cheaper materials which have been 

 or may be judiciously suggested as destroying agents, and the proper times 

 and manner of applying them. The members of the commission should 

 also receive sufficient compensation to warrant them in giving as much 

 time and labor to this investigation as may be required, even to the 



