!)6 THE EEPOET OF THE No. 36 



popular, they simply would not read. This was, generally speaking, the situation, 

 at the time when I was just beginning my entomological work among the farmers 

 of Illinods. 



We will now step over the intervening twenty-five years and look at the situation 

 as it is to-day. It will be an obscure section of the country mdeed, if, where there 

 are serious insect depredations going on, we at the Department of Agriculture do 

 not promptly receive a report of it through one or the other of several sources. 

 These reports are received through letters addressed direct to either the Depart- 

 ment or Bureau, and are coming each year with increasing frequency, through 

 experiment stations, the press, and, last though not least, through members of 

 Congress. 



Perhaps nothing better illustrates the changed condition and rapid growth of 

 agriculture as a science than the immense strides made by economic entomology as 

 applied over and throughout the broad acres of the ordinary farmer. At the present 

 time, instead of receiving a stereotyped reply to his applications for relief, when 

 he applies as an individual, or for his neighbourhood, to the Department of Agri- 

 culture, either directly, or, as is becoming every day more and more frequent, through 

 his representative in Congress, he is very often surprised when, within two or three 

 days after the receipt of his complaint, there appears in Tiis neighbourhood a young 

 man who, in most cases, has grown up a farmer's son on the farm, and, besides this, 

 has had a thorough university training, and, perhaps, is further equipped by having 

 been engaged in the investigation of insects over a wide range of country, including 

 perhaps no small number of the United States. Instead of receiving a letter which 

 to him migftit, perhaps, so far as practical aid is concerned, have been written in a 

 foreign language, he finds that his visitor can go about over his and his neighbours' 

 farms with him, and with a clear understanding of the crops cultivated can point 

 out the work of insects and tell them in what manner they might have avoided 

 these injuries and saved their money. He will tell him of things that, though he 

 may have spent a lifetime in farming, neither the farmer nor his neighbours have 

 ever yet been able to observe. His caller not only fits into their farm life and 

 speaks to him in the language of the farmer, but is able to explain, in a perfectly 

 natural and intelligible way, much of what to him has heretofore been a mystery. 

 The young man points out to him wherein their farm methods have, in many cases, 

 been primarily responsible for their previously sustained losses by insect attack. 

 The farmer is now in a position to read entomological literature intelligently and 

 with pleasure to himself. It does not greatly matter of what State he may be a 

 resident, if his locality is not too inaccessible, and the matter is of more than local 

 importance, any of the men located at the fifteen different field stations can be 

 wired instructions that will send them to his relief. In this way entomology as 

 applied to the broad acres of the farm has within the last twenty-five years become 

 completely revolutionized. This means much to the growers of grains and forage 

 crops and to the stock breeder. Moreover, it means almost equally as much to 

 the banker, the manufacturer and the merchant, all of whom are coming to recog- 

 nize the fact. It has been my own practice to take up only such investigations as 

 involve several States, leaving local matters to State institutions, where such are 

 equipped for the work, and, when called upon to deal with such, I have urged that 

 the State be at least given an opportunity to help itself, while we stood ready to 

 reinforce their efforts if need be. This course has been followed especially with 

 roforence to local outbreaks of grasshoppers. Where investigations can be carried 



