THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 395 



had always looked upon insect depredations precisely as they did 

 other natural phenomena like drouth, storms and floods, fully con- 

 vinced by ages of experience that nothing could be done to prevent 

 them, and, therefore, they must be endured to the end. Entomo- 

 logical literature, however elementary and popular, they simply 

 would not read. This was, generally speaking, the situation at 

 the time when I was just beginning my entomological work among 

 the farmers of Illinois. 



We will now step over the intervening 25 years and look at 

 the situation as it is to-day. It will be an obscure section of the 

 country, indeed, if where there are serious insect depredations 

 going on, we at the Department of Agriculture do not promptly 

 receive a report of it through one or the other of several sources. 

 These reports are received through letters addressed direct to 

 either the Department or Bureau, and are coming each year with 

 increasing frequency, through experiment stations, the press, and 

 last, though not least, through members of Congress. 



Perhaps nothing better illustrates the changed condition and 

 rapid grow'th of agriculture as a science than the immense strides 

 made by economic entomology as applied over and throughout the 

 broad acres of the ordinary farmer. At the present time, instead 

 of receiving a stereotyped reply to his applications for relief, when 

 he applies as an individual, or for his neighbourhood, to the De- 

 partment of Agriculture, either directly, or, as is becoming every 

 day more frequent, through his representative in Congress, he is 

 very often surprised when, within two or three days after the 

 receipt of his complaint, there appears in his neighbourhood a 

 young man who, in most cases, has grown up a farmer's son on 

 the farm, and, besides this, has had a thorough university training, 

 and, perhaps, is further equipped by having been engaged in the 

 investigation of insects over a wide range of country, including, 

 perhaps, no small number of the United States. Instead of re- 

 ceiving a letter which to him might, perhaps, so far as practical aid 

 is concerned, have been written in a foreign language, he finds that 

 his visitor can go about over his and his neighbours' farms with 

 him and with a clear understanding of the crops cultivated can 

 point out the work of insects and tell then in what manner they 

 might have avoided these injuries and saved their money. He 



