STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. .'il 



country is draAving to a close, the entomological low-lands are most 

 of them undrained, the river hanks are undefended, the less produc- 

 tive regions lie neglected, and the sub-soil plow, the spade of the 

 ditcher, and the ehiborate processes of a more highly developed 

 agriculture, are next in order. 



Take the chinch-hug and the army worm, for example. We 

 have learned to know these at sight, in all their stages; we know the 

 outlines of their life histories, in average years; we understand 

 fairly well the terrible effects of the ))erodical inundations of insect 

 life to which they subject our lands; but how little we know of the 

 whence, or the how, or the why, of the laws and the limits of these 

 vast and desolating floods; and how cheap and feeble are the barriers 

 which we have as yet been taught to erect against them. A simple 

 furrow, run with a plow or dug with a spade, — a tarred fence-board 

 set on edge. -a sprinkler charged with the kerosene emulsion, — 

 each single individual left toflght the wdiole outburst for himself and 

 alone, —this is about all that has hitherto been devised. Here and 

 there a farm may be partly guarded by such means for a little tiime, 

 but that is about all that we can say. 



Perhaps I have now sufficiently illustrated my meaning when I add 

 that it must be perfectly clear to one who surveys the course of the 

 progress of knowledge in economic biology, whether we deal with 

 insects, with birds, with flshes, or with plant parasites, that the next 

 ten or tifteen years should be characterized less by cursory observa- 

 tion and record of the surface facts than by thorough investigation 

 and research, by broad generalization, and by elaborate, critical ex- 

 periment. The microscope will come into use fully as often as the 

 insect net, the record-book of the experimenter will be as volumi- 

 nous as the note-book of the field observer; on the obscure problems 

 of economic entomology we> shall try the cross-lights of chemistry, 

 of botany, of microscopy, and of a scientific agriculture. In a word, 

 the period of mere observation is passing, and that of investigation 

 is next at hand; — has, indeed, already come, as is shown by the more 

 elaborate and thorougli-g(jing work of recent times, (notably that 

 of the United States Department of Agriculture), as compared with 

 that of former days. 



And now, returning for a moment to the figure with which I 

 began, I pn^pose to suluuit to you a preliminary report of a phu} 

 for draining an enfoniolof/ical sivamp, — for opening up to occupa- 

 tion and use a territory of most fertile ])roiuis<', but so difficult of 

 access as to have been left hitherto aliuost unexplored, and requiring 

 for its reclanuition methods and instruments which have but lately 

 even been discovered. 



And yet I think that T sliall be able to give you good rt^asons for 

 hoping, if not for believing, that this ol)scure region is one of extraor- 

 dinary value; that, if it can reclaimed, it will be such an addition to 

 our resources against injurious insects as has not been made for 



