WHOLE VOL. APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY HOWARD l6l 



The classification of the work adopted in 1904 has held with com- 

 paratively few changes since that time. Dr. W. D. Hunter was 

 placed in charge of the Southern Field Crop Insect Investigations, 

 including cotton, tobacco, and sugar cane, but, as he developed strong 

 interest in the general subject of insects in relation to diseases of man 

 and animals, that section was assigned to him, and excellent work was 

 carried on under him on insects affecting live stock, and a little later 

 on the Rocky Mountain fever tick in the Bitter Root Valley of Mon- 

 tana. Later still the investigations of insects affecting stored prod- 

 ucts was placed under the leadership of Dr. E. A. Back. Two inde- 

 pendent sections grew up — ^the one on the gipsy moth and the brown- 

 tail moth, and the other on the Japanese beetle. 



As an interlude, something should be said on the subject of seri- 

 cultural investigations, since this section was dropped a good many 

 years ago. Silk culture had always attracted a certain number of 

 individuals in North America ; and in colonial days a considerable 

 amount of silk was raised by colonists in Georgia and South Caro- 

 lina. While in Missouri, Riley became interested in the subject, suc- 

 ceeded in raising the domestic silkworm on the leaves of Osage orange 

 which was very prevalent down there, largely as a hedge plant, and 

 published articles on the subject in his Missouri Reports. When he 

 came to Washington in 1878, he brought eggs of his Osage orange 

 race with him, and the rearing of silkworms was carried on at the 

 Department in Washington. When Riley resigned in the spring of 

 1879 Comstock, who succeeded him, continued the work, Riley hav- 

 ing published during his term of office a manual of instructions in 

 silk culture which was generally distributed. 



When James Wilson came to Washington as Secretary of Agri- 

 culture he took, during his early administration, a journey to the 

 South, and came back filled with the idea that the poor people of the 

 South might take up silk culture as a household industry and find a 

 small profit in raising cocoons. He therefore secured an appropria- 

 tion from Congress, which was repeated for a number of years. 

 Before this, however, Riley, on his return to the Department in 1881, 

 had secured the interest and services of Philip Walker, a Harvard 

 graduate, whose uncle, Edward A. Serrell, resident in Paris, had 

 invented an electric silk reel which reduced the labor of reeling 

 cocoons. Congress at that period made appropriations for several 

 years, one of the Serrell reels was set up in the Department of Agri- 

 culture, eggs were purchased from abroad and distributed to all 

 applicants ; and the cocoons that they raised were bought by the 



