TWENTY FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 115 



let him become fully aware that such things must be done, and he will not 

 only do them, but that, too, without hardship. The fact is, we have 

 grown up from childhood, perfectly innocent of the fact that it was a 

 wrong to allow destructive insects, fungi, or weeds to spread from one 

 farm to another, or that it was possible to prevent it, and in manhood 

 we Jiave gone on letting ourselves and each other neglect doing 

 that which is becoming every year more essential to our mutual protec- 

 tion. Is it not that in this whole matter we are like overgrown children, 

 that have been reared unrestrained, and now feel that restraint is an in- 

 fringement on our individual rights, that it is not really the thing itself 

 that stands in the way, but the feeling that such efforts are not strictly 

 necessary, and no serious wrong would result from a failure to make 

 them? It is never so hard to do something that we know must be done, 

 as it is to do another, or even the same, act with the feeling that it is not 

 necessary, and there is no power behind to compel us to do it. 



The necessity of combined effort in fighting insects has come to us 

 gradually, and we can as yet look at it only as a personal matter. Let the 

 United States require a five-cent revenue stamp to be placed on every 

 promissory note, and the stamp will go on all such, and without any pro- 

 crastination about it. Your easy-going neighbor would spray and disin- 

 fect his trees and plants^ and care for them in a manner that would pro- 

 tect yours, just as promptly and willingly as he would place a five-cent 

 stamp on his note, if he knew that he had to do so. 



Possibly you have also a neighbor who is slovenly, stubborn, and ill- 

 natured, one who will make himself very disagreeable on slight provoca- 

 tion, and who, as in some cases that have come under my observation, 

 threatens U shoot any person who comes upon his premises to inspect his 

 trees or treat them for insects or fungous pests, that menaced the inter- 

 ests of his neighbors. In Massachusetts, where they are fighting the 

 gypsy moth, men who are employed in this work by the commonwealth 

 can go anywhere and are armed with full authority to search any man's 

 premises, and do so; despite which, shocking casualties do not occur. No 

 one thinks for a moment of molesting these men. Again, in Adelaide, 

 the capital of South Australia, a city about half the size of Detroit, there 

 was not, in February, 1889, a single tumbledown house or rookery to be 

 found. Why? Because the government would not allow such to stand. 

 If anyone wished to build, he must construct a reasonably substantial 

 building, large or small as he desired; but, having once erected his build- 

 ing, he was compelled to keep it in good condition, and the day he ceased 

 to do this the government would take it in charge, and either repair and 

 compensate itself out of the rental, or else tear it down. Nobody here 

 thought of maintaining dilapidated buildings, and the law is obeyed wil- 

 lingly and without hardship, because every one knows in advance what 

 the termination of an attempt at an evasion of the law will be, and no 

 such efforts are put forth. Your irascible neighbor will not shoot nor 

 harm anyone, but will obey the laws promptly and willingly when he once 

 learns that he must do so. 



Now, you say, I am talking to you of men when I was supposed to have 

 prepared a paper for you on the subject of economic entomology; and so 

 I have. But for the "last fifteen years, every problem in practical ento- 

 mology that I have attempted to solve, has sooner or later ceased to be 



