148 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 84 



south for some years, who were trained scientific men and who wrote 

 about insects. These were Dr. W. I. Burnett, Major J. L. LeConte, 

 and Dr. A. R. Grote. 



Even 25 years ago there were no native southern entomologists, 

 and there was no competent instruction given in entomology in any 

 southern institution. I remember in the early days of the cotton boll 

 weevil investigation, when I was discussing appropriations with the 

 Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives, one of 

 the southern members of the committee said to me " Who is this 

 man Hunter; where does he come from?" I replied, "From Ne- 

 braska." "And who is Hinds? " was the next question. " Where does 

 he come from?" My reply was " Massachusetts." "Well," said the 

 Member of Congress, " I should think that you would have sufficient 

 judgment to employ for a job of this kind southern boys who know 

 the cotton crop and who know the people." My reply was that the 

 South at that time was not educating men in this line, and I went on to 

 say that Mr. Jefferson Johnson, then Commissioner of Agriculture of 

 Texas, had told nie only a few weeks i)etore. at Austin, that he con- 

 sidered W. D. Hunter of the Bureau's force the best posted man he 

 knew on all aspects of the cotton crop. 



It was at this same hearing that I took with me an enlarged papier- 

 mache model of the cotton boll weevil, perhaps 14 inches long. When 

 Mr. Wadsworth, the chairman of the committee, called on me, 1 

 took this model from its case and placed it on the table before me ; 

 upon which Captain John Lamb, of Virginia, a member of the 

 committee, sang out to Congressman Burleson of Texas, who was also 

 a member of the committee and afterwards Postmaster General under 

 President Wilson, " My God! Burleson, is it as big as that? " 



It is probably not realized that practically all of the men who have 

 become prominent in entomological work in the Southern States 

 during the last 25 years (this is written at the close of 1927) have 

 been of northern birth and northern education. Let us take a dozen 

 of them. Wilmon Newell, of Texas. Louisiana, and Florida, was 

 born in Iowa and educated at the Iowa State College of Agriculture. 

 W. E. Hinds, of Texas. Georgia, and now of Louisiana, was born 

 and educated in Massachusetts ( Massachusetts .Vgricultural Col- 

 lege). Franklin Sherman, of North Carolina and South Carolina, 

 although born in Virginia, was educated at Cornell University. A. F. 

 Conradi, formerly of South Carolina, was born and educated in Ohio 

 (Ohio State University). Harrison Carman, for many years Ento- 

 mologist of Kentucky, was born in Illinois and educated at Johns 



