SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 211 



On April 2, 1870, Dr. Wm. Le Baron, of Geneva, was appointed as Walsh's 

 successor and he continued to hold the position until April 9, 1875, when Dr. 

 Cyrus Thomas, of Carbonclale, was appointed. Dr. Le Baron made four re- 

 ports which were published either separately with the reports of State officers 

 made to the general assembly, or appendices to the transactions of the State 

 Horticultural Society. Dr. Thomas continued in office until June 30, 1882, 

 making six reports which were published in connection with the transactions of 

 the State department of agriculture. After the resignation of Dr. Thomas, at 

 the date just given, Prof. S. A. Forbes was appointed to the position, which 

 he still holds. Prof. F. has made three reports and a fourth will be published 

 within a few months. 



I again quote from the introduction above mentioned : 



" The scope and variety of the fourteen reports of this office are sufficiently 

 indicated by the voluminous lists and indexes necessary to give convenient 

 access to their contents. In volume they far exceed the literature of the econ- 

 omic entomology of any other State, amounting in all to 2,358 pages, of which 

 104 have been contributed by Walsh, 419 by Le Baron, 1,187 by Thomas, and 

 G48 by Forbes. They may broadly be said to contain four classes of matter, — 

 (1) original contributions to entomology, chiefly prepared with reference to 

 economic applications, characteristic especially of the first four and the last 

 three reports; (2) treatises on the classification of single orders of insects, as 

 in the fifth and sixth reports (Coleoptera), the seventh and tenth (Lepidoptera), 

 the eighth (Homoptera especially Aphides 1 , and the ninth (Orthoptera); (3) 

 full summaries of existing knowledge respecting the most important injurious 

 insects, as the Hessian fly and the army worm ; and (4) monographs of all the 

 insect enemies of a single crop, as of the insects affecting the strawberry, in the 

 thirteenth report." 



The salary of the State entomologist was at the time of the creation of the 

 office fixed at 12,000 per annum, a sum which has not since been changed. 



With one or two exceptions no appropriations were made for any other ex- 

 penses of the office until 1883-4, when 8500 per annum was appropriated, as an 

 item in the appropriation bill of the Illinois State laboratory of natural history, 

 for the office and incidental expenses of the State entomologist. 



At the time of his appointment to the office just mentioned, Prof. Forbes 

 held the position of director of the Illinois State laboratory of natural history, 

 a unique institution which has had and is having a marked effect upon the 

 progress of scientific knowledge and culture in the west. It has grown within 

 a very few years from a small beginning when it was supported by a mere pit- 

 tance and all the work connected with it was done by a single person, into an insti- 

 tution which receives the hearty and liberal support of the State, giving 

 employment to a half dozen trained assistants, possessing a large and valuable 

 library as well as much of the latest and most approved apparatus necessary for 

 biological investigation, and being recognized and honored by the highest 

 scientific organizations of Europe and America. After his appointment as 

 State entomologist Prof. Forbes continued to hold the position of director, and 

 was thus enabled to utilize the many advantages of the laboratory, including 

 such time of assistants as was thought desirable for the work of the office. As 

 a consequence remarkable progress has been made, and I only repeat the pub- 

 lished verdict of the scientific world in stating that in few places elsewhere have 

 the difficult and complicated problems of economic entomology been grappled 

 with so much earnestness, originality and distinguished success. 



