106 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL.84 



sylvania had handled its economic entomology by means of an officer 

 who held an honorary commission. This position was held by Dr. 

 S. S. Rathvon, and I have elsewhere called attention to the fact that 

 in 1880 J. T. Humphreys wrote to Washington on letterheads which 

 read " Late Naturalist and Entomologist to the Georgia Department 

 of Agriculture," but I have not been al)le to learn the details of such 

 employment. 



Although the State Experiment Stations were not organized until 

 the spring of 1888, a number of entomologists were soon appointed 

 and actiye work began practically in the month of February. It 

 would be difficult to overestimate the value to the country at large 

 of this action on the part of the Federal Government. It is true that 

 there was a dearth of trained entomologists and that it became nec- 

 essary for men to undertake the work who had had practically no 

 training in entomology at all. or for entomologists who knew nothing 

 at all about agricultural entomology to step in and try to meet the new 

 needs. 



By 1894, 42 States and Territories had employed persons to do 

 entomological work, while the numl)er of experiment station workers 

 who had published entomological Inilletins or reports reached ']']. 

 Not all of these writers, however, were officially designated as ento- 

 mologists to the stations, but there were 28 who were so designated, 

 and it is reasonably sure that there were not 28 qualified agricultural 

 entomologists in the country. The others who wrote were botanists, 

 horticulturists, physiologists, zoologists, superintendents of farms, 

 directors and vice-directors of stations, mycologists, and special 

 agents. 



T>ut the output was not bad. It could not from the start include 

 original research. By 1894 there bad been 311 publications contain- 

 ing agricultural entomology. It is interesting to look at the entomo- 

 logical publications which apjieared in the first few months. They 

 were not at all bad, although, among the authors, Hulst in New 

 Jersey and Ashmead in Florida had been simply systematists while 

 Tracy in Mississippi was a botanist. However, Weed in Ohio, 

 Popenoe in Kansas, Perkins in X'ermont, Fernald in Massachusetts 

 and Lugger in Minnesota had already shown themselves to be, in 

 one position or another, capable of good research work in applied 

 entomology. 



Between 1894 and 1907 (the next time that I had occasion to survey 

 the Experiment Stations field) afTairs with the Experiment Stations 

 had shaped themselves into good form, and entomology, among the 

 other sciences applied to agriculture, had begun to receive greater 



