178 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



public requires iiiformatiou iu some particular section of the State, 

 and on such occasions special articles are prepared and sent to the 

 newspapers in that region. 



(7) PUBLIC ADDRESSES 



There is a general call on the Economic Zoologist for public ad- 

 dresses before organizations of various kinds, and as he regards this 

 as one of the important means of meeting and serving the public he 

 accepts such invitations as far as other duties will permit. During 

 the year 1915 no less than 35 public addresses were made, 12 of 

 which were illustrated with lantern slides. These were on various 

 topics in relation to economic zoology, entomology, horticulture, 

 wild life protection, pest suppression, bird preservation and others 

 of a kindred nature. * 



(B) FIELD WORK 



(1) THE ORCHARD INSPECTION SERVICE 



The orchard inspection service has been one of the most important 

 features of work undertaken at any time for our agricultural people. 

 Men trained to recognize pests, and to know the needs of orchards, 

 went systematically through the orchards, and, in fact, inspected 

 absolutely all cultivated trees, bushes and shrubs, whether on a 

 small area or large, for the purpose of determining what pests were 

 present and helping to instruct the owners as to what to do to over- 

 come them and produce better fruits. Each orchard inspector gave a 

 written report of his findings to the owner of the premises and also 

 sent a copy to this office. We in turn wrote to the owner sending 

 him circulars of information on the subject of the kind or kinds of 

 pests that were discovered. Where help was needed incidentally on 

 some feature or orcharding, it was freely given. In many cases own- 

 ers found that their properties were infested with very serious in- 

 sects, such as the San Jose scale, of which they were not formerly 

 aware, and in other cases they found that the insects present were 

 not as important or destructive as they had believed them to be. 

 The methods recommended resulted in better fruit production, and 

 an awakening to higher possibilities and better general results. 



The important fact is to be reported that during the year 1915 

 the first orchard inspection work in the State of Pennsylvania was 

 completed, after a long, steady pull, by earnest and faithful inspec- 

 tors, during a period of eight years. During this j^ear inspections 

 were made that completed the following counties: Allegheny, Berks, 

 Crawford, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland. Tlie accompany- 

 ing maps, showing the spread of the inspection work over the State 

 are very interesting. It must be remembered that it took twenty- 

 five men eight years to do this work. During this time each man 

 was constantly going to new territory and overlapping his old terri- 

 tory only to the extent that was necessary to keep up the work in 

 the demonstration and supervision orchards. During this period 

 of change it was possible for several new pests to come in the terri- 

 tory first inspected, and it would be much better for the growers of 

 crops if there were funds enough to employ a force large enough to 

 complete the inspection at least once every four years. 



(2) DEMONSTRATION ORCHARDS 



It was necessary to maintain the services in the older established 

 Demonstration Orchards, and also to establish many new ones. 



