22 THE REPORT OF THE No. 19 



PROGRESS OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY IN ONTARIO. 



(Animal Address of the President.) 



By Wm. Lochhead, B.A., M.S., Professor of Biology, Ontario Agricultural 



College, Guelph. 



Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, — This is not the first time that our Society has 

 held its meetings in your City. This is the fifth occasion, but the fourth was in 1889 — 14 years 

 ago. We are celebrating our 40th year. If age counts for anything in a Society's history, we 

 should possess a certain amount of wisdom ; we are old enough to be wise, yet how many of 

 the people whom we try to help would consider us filled wirh the spirit of wisdom if they hap- 

 pened to see us, young and old, chasing bugs and butterflies over meadows, and across cultivated 

 fields? In all real scientific investigation there is much apparent senseless (to the supeificial, 

 casual observer) but necessary work. The real work is long and often laborious, and done 

 frequently while others sleep. 



On occasions of this kind when scientists from Ontario and her sister provinces meet to 

 discuss entomological problems it is the privilege of the President to review the work which 

 has been dune not only in Ontario, but also in the larger scientific world outside. It is always 

 well to know what our neighbors are doing in the different fields of scientific research, lest we 

 iall into a rut, become self-satisfied, and make but little progress. I shall not prefcume to 

 review the progress of Entomology throughout the world, for that would requii'e volumes, but 

 I shall confine my remarks to the much smaller task, viz , the progress of Economic or 

 Applied Entomology in Ontario. 



There are gentlemen in this Society who are more capable than I of bringing before you 

 the progress of Economic Entomology in Ontario. I refer to gentlemen like Dr. Bethune, Dr. 

 Saunders and Dr. Fletcher, who have served this Society faithfully ; who have ever kept them- 

 selves in the foreground where the hardest hits are received and given ; who have experi- 

 mented and toiled that the husbandman might have greater returns ; and whosg achievements 

 are the' records of the progress which I am about to record. 



When we consider the status of applied Eutomolrgy to-day, and contrast it with that of a 

 generation ago, we cannot help being impressed with the magniticent strides that have taken 

 place. To-day Economic Entomology has a place among the other applied sciences, and the 

 farmer, gardener, and fruit-grower appeal to the economic entomologist with confidence in the 

 results. To-day Entomology is being taught in many of our schools, not perhaps as a syste- 

 matic science, but as a most valuable Nature-Study ; and the life-histories of many of the 

 most common insects are being worked out every year by hundreds of eager, enthusiastic 

 nature-students. To-day chairs of Entomology are established in Our larger universities, and 

 corps of trained entomologists are maintained by the most advanced governments of the 

 time. 



This change has not taken place all at once, as if by magic, but by slow, almost impei'cep- 

 tible, degrees. Ento)nology possesses no magic wand to conmiand the attention of the workers 

 of the soil and the cultivators of the crojis of the soil, who are by nature not given to a hasty 

 adoption of new-fangled ideas. By patient, pains-taking work the student of insects has 

 gained the ear of the government and the people. Credit will never be given to the thousands 

 of modest workers who worked for the love of investigating, and ^who]*diil 'not look for the. 

 applause of the public. In the pages of annual reports, in magazines, in agricultural papers, 

 and in the unpublished note-books in some obscure office, will be found the results of the 

 work of the noble band of workers. _^Our 'own Canadian band"did^much to hasten the time 

 when the people would recognise the work of entomologists by listening''gladly°to their words 

 of advice in times of stress. Not only did our Canadian workers add to our knowledge by the 

 publication of original observations, but they also kept close watch over the work of the ento- 



