WHOLE VOL. APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY HOWARD 355 



de Bussy, knowing of the occurrence of the insect in this country and 

 understanding that it was not a serious pest of tobacco here, thought 

 that it might be held in check here by parasites that could be intro- 

 duced into Sumatra ; and the tobacco planters adopted a suggestion 

 that he should go to the United States to secure such parasites. This 

 decision was reached rather suddenly in the late spring or early 

 summer of 1910, and he started for the United States via Amsterdam. 

 The Dutch Government took the matter very seriously and notified 

 the Dutch Minister to the United States that Doctor de Bussy was on 

 his way, and asked him to lighten his path officially. As it happened, 

 at that time the Dutch Minister was Jonkeer Loudon, long afterwards 

 Minister of Education in Holland and one of her foremost statesmen. 

 The Minister and his family had gone to Bar Harbor for the summer, 

 but he left that cool summer resort on receipt of the advices from his 

 home government and came to Washington in the heat of July to 

 assure himself that the expert from Sumatra would be properly 

 received. I assured the Minister that we would do our utmost to 

 forward the purpose of the mission, and at the same time was very 

 much impressed by the importance of the matter as evidenced by 

 Mr. Loudon's unusual action. De Bussy proved to be a delightful 

 and able man, and I went with him to the Pacific Coast and back 

 through the Southwest to Texas where I left him with Doctor Hunter 

 and his assistants at Dallas. The Heliothis was very abundant in 

 Texas, and the Trichogramma egg-parasite was also abundant. 

 De Bussy engaged one of Doctor Hunter's assistants to make ship- 

 ments of parasitized eggs to Sumatra, and returned to his post. 



Living parasites were introduced, but I believe brought about no 

 especial change of conditions in the tobacco fields. I feel rather sure 

 that the same species of Trichogramma, or one closely related to it, 

 must have been present already on the island, or at least in Java, 

 since it is figured on one of Zehntner's plates. The anecdote is told to 

 show the thought given to the subject by the planters and their experts 

 and to indicate their enterprise. 



As a matter of fact, the Heliothis is by no means controlled by its 

 parasites in the United States, and the comparative immunity of 

 tobacco from its attack is probably due to the very great abundance 

 of preferred foods, such as corn, tomatoes, or cotton. 



As would be expected from the personnel, the publications coming 

 from the Dutch East Indies have been of the highest character, not 

 only in other aspects of agricultural science but also in economic 

 entomology. 



The Experiment Station for East Java was apparently founded in 

 1887, principally for sugar investigations. At the same time sta- 



