8o SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 84 



Commissioner of Agriculture to appoint three scientific men to inves- 

 tigate the locusts and to report as to the best means of preventing 

 their ravages. It authorized the Treasurer of the United States to 

 pay the expenses incurred in making the investigation, upon presen- 

 tation of vouchers approved by the Commissioner of Agriculture. The 

 second bill (Senate 438) was introduced by Senator Ingalls of Kan- 

 sas. This bill gave the Secretary of the Interior authority to appoint 

 a board of commissioners, on nomination of the National Academy 

 of Sciences, to consist of three entomologists eminent in their pro- 

 fession. It authorized this commission to investigate the Rocky 

 Mountain locust, the chinch bug, the army worm, the cotton-worm, 

 the Hessian fly and other insects injurious to the great staples, corn, 

 wheat, and cotton, and to report once each year to the Secretary of 

 the Interior. This bill provided that the commissioners be appointed 

 for the term of five years, to receive $5,000 per annum each, and 

 also clerical assistance and expenses not to exceed [sum not men- 

 tioned] per annum. 



Neither of these bills passed, and the final legislation as adopted 

 March 3, 1876, consisted of a clause in the bill appropriating to the 

 Interior Department which provided for the sum of $18,000 to be 

 spent under the Director of the Geological Survey by a commission of 

 three men to investigate the Rocky Mountain locust. The original 

 sum asked for was $25,000, and the original board was to have con- 

 sisted of five men. The amount was reduced to $18,000, and the 

 number of members to three. 



It is interesting at this time to see that the passage of this bill was 

 not greeted with universal approval. It is really worth while to quote 

 from an editorial published in The Nation for March 16, 1876: 



The Republicans in the Senate, not to be beaten at investigations, have passed 

 a bill to investigate insects injurious to vegetation — the locust, the chinch bug, 

 the army worm, the Hessian fly and the potato bug. The bill provides for an 

 investigator-in-chief at a salary of four thousand dollars a year, the Herculean 

 labors of the head of the Agricultural Bureau preventing that official from giving 

 the necessary time to it. The act, should it pass the House — which seems doubt- 

 ful — will be a new application of the great principle of division of labor, for in 

 future the Agricultural Commissioner will scatter the seed broadcast over the 

 land, while the national entomologist will follow closely on his trail and ex- 

 terminate the various bugs that may attack the ripening grain. We only want 

 now another Commissioner to harvest the crops, and another to see that they 

 get to deep water, and the husbandman will be entirely relieved from grinding toil. 



This editorial met the eye of Professor Riley, who replied with a 

 letter, published in The Nation of March 30, in which he stated that 

 the editor's satirical remarks, if aimed simply at the bill as it passed 

 the Senate, were perhaps justified, but, if aimed at the idea of national 



