182 OHIO EXPERIMENT STATION: BULLETIN 332 



England States in 1914, the writer has become convinced that the 

 only thoroughly successful method to operate such a department is 

 along broad civil service lines. The personnel of the force should 

 be selected on a civil service basis; that is, the men who are best 

 equipped to do the work should be given the positions and after 

 the positions are filled, continuity of service should be maintained 

 in so far as possible. It has been his observation that the most 

 successful departments are those in which these principles are 

 adhered to, from the position of general director on down the scale 

 to the workmen. By such a plan certain men become proficient 

 along certain lines and hence are thus far more efficient than inex- 

 perienced men can ever be. In the matter of spraying alone, the 

 constant changing of workmen results in tremendous losses of 

 materials during the process of educating the newcomers. One city 

 department which the writer has in mind has had a new force of 

 workmen to handle the spraying rigs almost every season and some 

 seasons has had two groups to train. 



The most striking difference between the commission plan of 

 organizing the department and the city department plan lies in the 

 fact that the former makes for the application of civil service prin- 

 ciples and the latter operates against it. The city department is 

 constantly subject to turmoil and upheavals becauses of changing 

 political administrations, and the personnel of the department in 

 many cases is selected and maintained largely through political 

 preference. Many times has the writer seen efficient, conscientious 

 men replaced by rounders and henchmen whose only interest in the 

 work was the periodical advent of the pay car and its quota of yel- 

 low envelopes — men whose only qualification for the work to be 

 done was that the "man higher up" demanded that they be accom- 

 modated with a berth. 



Because of the role he thus plays in contributing to the delin- 

 quency of his city's trees, this "man higher up," if he is an un- 

 scrupulous politician, may justly be termed a pest of first quality 

 who well deserves a place in the insect rogues' gallery. He should 

 be given equal prominence with Aspidiotus perniciosus, Hemero- 

 campa leucostigma and Thryidopteryx ephemeraeformis ; indeed, 

 j even greater prominence, for the entomologist showers such pests 

 ( I with noxious chemicals or even poisons their provender and is 

 cheered for his efforts, whereas the same treatment meted out to 

 the politicians would speedily bring him into conflict with the law 

 and perhaps consign him to the gallows. 



