THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 169 



temporary abandonment, if necessary, of their other scientific or secular 

 pursuits. No such task can be properly performed and completed by the 

 solitary labors of State entomologists underpaid and overburdened with 

 work. Only by association of several such careful observers and investi- 

 gators can a worthy, useful result be obtained for the suppresion of several 

 of the most formidable pests. 



2. This information being procured, should be tabulated as far as 

 possible, or at least reduced to a compact form for easy reference and 

 widely published in newspapers and also in pamphlet form. 



3. By the distribution of this information and by appeals through the 

 newspapers and agricultural journals, as well as by addresses at meetings 

 of farmers and others interested in agriculture, it must be impressed upon 

 the public mind that all individual efforts for the suppression of these 

 pests are frequently futile. Only combined and consentaneous action 

 over large tracts of country will be effective. 



Now, while I am prepared to believe that when these facts are made 

 known to the farmers they will immediately see the importance of the 

 suggestion for unanimous and simultaneous advance upon the enemy, yet 

 without legislative aid it will be quite impossible to secure the organization 

 requisite for an effective onslaught. It will therefore be necessary for the 

 citizens interested to command their representatives, either in State 

 Legislatures or in National Congress, to prepare proper laws for the 

 destruction of these pests at stated times, to be determined and recom- 

 mended by the scientific commission. These laws will be not only 

 cheerfully obeyed by every intelligent farmer, but I know that the farmers' 

 as a class will be glad to have such laws enacted and enforced with 

 penalties for their neglect. Those disposed to help themselves and each 

 other can only thus be protected against an ignorant or indolent neighbor, 

 whose thriftlessness would otherwise make of his potato patch, his cotton 

 field or his plum orchard a nuisance nursery from which no industry could 

 protect the surrounding farms. 



Thus, then, the organization necessary for a successful campaign 

 against our insect enemies must be authoritatively demanded by you. 

 Under less free forms of government the plan which I have suggested 

 would probably have long ago been perfected by the rulers. Even the 

 fear of the extension of the Colorado potato beetle to Europe has excited 

 in several countries almost as much discussion and confusion of counsel 

 as an apprehended revolution. 



