ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY. 



ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND NEEDS IN THE UNITED STATES. 



BY PROF. A. J. COOK, OF THE STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



A few years ago that speaker or writer who should be bold enough to eveu 

 mention seriously that science might and ought to be applied to advance the 

 practical arts, would not only have been held in derision by the unlettered and 

 practical folk, but even his brother scientists would have regarded him as an 

 unworthy member of their fraternity. The practical man held — as many 

 hold even to-day — that the idea of applied science was absurd, while the 

 student of science maintained that his pursuit was by far too exalted to stoop 

 to the ignoble work of ministering to mere human desire. But it is my happy 

 privilege to record a very great and rapidly growing change in the opinion of 

 both the above classes. The leaven of our Christianity has worked in the 

 hearts of our scientists, and they feel that the noblest of all work is to lighten 

 the burdens of weary humanity ; that while all truth is precious, that truth 

 •which elevates the condition of our fellow man is glorious. On the other 

 hand, the geological erudition of Murchison, who revealed the vast hidden 

 treasures of Australia ; the researches of Prof. Coste, which established the ex- 

 tensive business of oyster-planting, leading to the conversion of Avhole shores 

 of waste acreage into most profitable plantations ; the valuable truths elicited 

 by the noted Pasteur, who not only discovered the cause, but also a preventive 

 of the terrible pebrine, which threatened the total ruin of silk manufacture, by 

 the extermination of the silk-worm ; not to mention the more familiar cases of 

 Franklin, Morse, Farraday, and, — to come to our own science, — the many 

 practical discoveries in economic entomology, which enable us to feast upon the 

 bounties of nature in lieu of yielding up her most priceless blessings to the 

 hordes of eager insects ever present to snatch them from us — all these results 

 make the wise producer, — the far-seeing laboring man, — no longer to ignore 

 scientific research, or to doubt its practical benefits, but rather to acknowledge 

 its vast importance, and give it all possible aid, that they may reap the fullest 

 rewards from its most perfect accomplishments. Add to this the fact that 

 each year records enormous losses, and often deplorable suffering, as at the 

 present time, through the ravages of the chinch-bug and locust, along our 

 western prairies, from a foe, before which the farmer and fruit-grower are all 

 powerless, and we can easily understand why it is that there is an increased 



