FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



might fail, but the profits on the third year would exceed a 

 hundred thousand dollars, and this enabled him to carry on. 

 Here is a curious instance of the importance to some people of 

 little technical points. The elder Thompson said to me the first 

 night I was there, "So you are an assistant to Professor Corn- 

 stock? I don't believe that he is a very good entomologist." 



I said, "Why? What makes you think that?" 



"Well," he said, "I sent samples of this beetle to him, and 

 also to the great entomologist, Professor Riley. Comstock wrote 

 me that it was Ligyms rugiceps and Riley wrote me that it was 

 Ligyrus ruginasus." (Henry Ulke had identified the beede for 

 Comstock, and E. A. Schwarz had determined it for Riley.) I 

 wonder if Mr. Thompson thought that the proper Latin name 

 had any effect upon the remedial treatment. 



The next few days we spent in the cane fields. It was a new 

 crop to me, and I learned a lot. 



One interesting incident connected with my stay at Calumet 

 Plantation was a visit to Joe Jefferson, the actor, who had a 

 house in the swampy woods some thirty miles away. It does 

 not seem to be generally known among the thousands of 

 admirers of Jefferson that he had this place in Louisiana, and 

 that he spent his time there painting swamp landscapes. As I 

 recollect, the canvases were not especially good, but Jefferson 

 was cordial to us, and was quite as charming off the stage as on. 



On my return to Washington, I wrote a circular about this 

 damage to sugar-cane by Ligyrus, and it was published by the 

 Department, of course over Comstock's signature. 



There was one more trip to the south in those early days, 

 and it happened after my return from the Georgia rice-fields. 

 The same old northern army worm turned up in great numbers 

 in the wheat-fields of northern Alabama, around Huntsville, 



[44] 



