WHOLE VOL. APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY HOWARD I43 



Walsh's fearlessness and his trenchant style were admirable. No 

 one has expressed himself in print about these matters quite as posi- 

 tively as he did. Here are some quotations : 



Addressing the advertiser of a patent remedy, he says, " We fear 

 greatly that, instead of being a decently good entomologist, tolerably 

 well acquainted with the noxious insects of the United States, you are 

 a mere entomological quack; and that, instead of talking good, com- 

 mon, horse sense to us, you are uttering all the time nothing but 

 bosh." 



Another time, writing of people of that class and the avidity with 

 which farmers and fruit-growers bought their wares, he says, " Long 

 live King Humbug! He still feeds fools on flapdoodle, and many of 

 them have large and flourishing families who will perpetuate the 

 breed to the remotest generation." 



In another connection, referring to the sudden springing of an old 

 scientific name on a generation that commonly uses a later one, he 

 says (and we quote it to show his style), ** To my mind the naturalist 

 who rakes out of the dust of old libraries some long-forgotten name 

 and demands that it shall take the place of a name of universal accep- 

 tance, ought to be indicted before the High Court of Science as a 

 public nuisance, and on conviction sent to a Scientific Penitentiary 

 and fed there for the whole remaining term of his scientific life upon 

 a diet of chinch bugs and formic acid." 



I have made a slight search for some of the old advertisements of 

 those days, but have not found any which it is worth while to repro- 

 duce. Reputaljle journals did not often print them as they did the 

 advertisements of patent medicines, but the most extraordinary circu- 

 lars were mailed to farmers and fruit-growers, and the country mer- 

 chants permitted the posting of placards and engaged to some extent 

 in the sale of these untried nostrums. 



Thanks to sound legislation in this country the situation is now 

 greatly improved, but there is still a tendency to push the sale of com- 

 pounds of unproved worth, and there is an amazing readiness on the 

 part of the agricultural public to buy almost anything that is ofifered. 

 This probably is human nature. 



In my frequent journeys to European countries I have found that 

 conditions in this direction in many of those countries are much like 

 they used to be in the United States. There does not seem to be gov- 

 ernment control over the sale of worthless nostrums. 



In 1903 only six States of the United States had passed insecticide 

 laws — California, Louisiana, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Wash- 

 ington. The first State law was probably enacted in Louisiana, but it 



