VERMONT AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 49 



stations have also exposed frauds in creamery construction 

 and equipment and dairy apparatus. An important feature 

 of their work has been the investigation of injurious insects 

 and diseases of plants, such as the rot of grapes, apple scab, 

 San Jose scale, gypsy moth, potato rot, potato scab, smuts in 

 wheat and other grains. Through the discovery of an effec- 

 tive curd test the Wisconsin station has provided a means for 

 detecting tainted or defective milk at cheese factories, a mat- 

 ter which caused a loss of from $100,000 to $200,000 each sum- 

 mer in Wisconsin alone. This station and the Minnesota sta- 

 tion have been largely instrumental in introducing the grow- 

 ing of rape in those States and it is now grown on thousands 

 of farms. 



ENTOMOLOGY. 



In applied entomology, or the work against injurious in- 

 sects, the past thiirty years have been more productive of 

 practical discoveries of great importance than the whole pre- 

 vious history of agriculture. 



Aside from the intimate knowledge of the habits and life 

 histories of our many insect pests which has been gained dur- 

 ing this period, the principal factors in progress have been 

 the discovery of the practical use of arsenical poisons for bit- 

 ing insects, the use of kerosene emulsion for destroying suck- 

 ing insects, and hydrocyanic acid gas for the destruction of 

 scale insects not only upon nursery stock but upon orchard 

 trees, and the invention, marketing and practical use of a 

 large number of mechanical devices for the distribution of 

 insecticide mixtures, from the bucket pump and the knapsack 

 pump to the steam or gasoline engine. 



Instead of being at the mercy of a host of insect foes 

 whose life round was unknown, as was the case 30 years ago, 

 the farmer and fruit gower have now a fund of exact informa- 

 tion, not only as to the habits and potential destuctiveness of 

 nearly every one of these kinds of insects, but as to the best 

 and cheapest mode of killing them or preventing their attacks. 



This result has been brought about not only by the ento- 

 mologists alone, but by the educated and practical farmers, 

 quick to grasp a suggestion and put it to a practical test, and 

 quick to improve upon a hint derived from a knowledge of 

 the exact life periods and habits of their insect foes. 



An important feature of work has been the introduction 

 of the Australian ladybird beetle into California for the des- 

 truction of the white scale and of the same insect from this 

 country into South Africa and Portugal where the same mar- 

 velous results were brought about. An entomological 

 achievement, which, although it does not refer to the destruc- 



