94 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



In 1884 the Department of Agriculture of Canada established the office of honorary 

 entomologist, and this office was filled by the appointment of Mr James Fletcher, at that 

 time an employee of the Government Library at Ottawa, and already widely known in 

 entomological circles through his active interest in the Ontario society and his contiiba- 

 tions to its publications. On July 1, 1887, Mr. Fletcher was transferred to the staff of 

 the Dominion Experimental Farm at Ottawa as entomologist and botanist. Mr. Fletcher's 

 footing since that date has been practically identical with that of an entomologist to one 

 of our Scate experiment stations, except that his field i.s larger. He has published a 

 report yearly in the Annual Report of the Experimental Farms, published as an appendix 

 to the report of the Minister of Agriculture. Mr. Fletcher has shown himself to be a 

 man of extraordinary energy, a most entertaining writer, and a most careful observer, and 

 one who has always kept the practical part of his work furemost in view. He has paid a 

 great deal of attention to a side of his work which is neglected by many of our own 

 official entomologists, namely, personal intercourse with fanaers, frt quent talks on 

 injurious insects at farmers' institutes, etc., aud has in this way budt up a very large 

 clientage among the most intelligent agriculturists in the Dominion. In economic ento- 

 mology Canada at the present day is perhaps in no way behind the United States, 

 and this is largely due to Mr Fletcher's individual eflPorts, aided and encouraged as they 

 are by the warm support of the eminent director of the experimen'al farm system, Mr. 

 William Saunders, himself a pioneer in economic entomology in Canada and the author of 

 one of the most valuable treatises upon the subject that hd.s ever been published in 

 America. Canada has the man and the kno^vledge, but has been hampered by want of 

 funds. The result is that while she has immediately and intelligently adopted the results 

 of researches made in this country, she has not been able lo lead us in original investi- 

 gation. 



European Countries. 



In general it may be said that Europe has not felt the need of entomological 

 invesfigaiion from the economic standpoint to anything like the same extent as the 

 United States. A climate much less favorable to the undue multiplication of injurious 

 insects than that of North America, and which, moreover, seems to act as a barrier against 

 the importation of foreign destructive species, the actually ssmaller number of injurious 

 species and the vastly greater familiarity with all phases of the life-history of these species 

 by all classes of the people, partly resulting from the older civiiiz^,tii'n, partly from edu- 

 cational methods, and partly from the a*iuudance of elementary and popular litera'ure oa 

 questionsof this character, the denser population, and the resulting vastly smaller hildinga 

 in farms, the necessarily greatly diversified cr< ps, the frequent rotation of croj)S, together 

 with the clean and close cultivation necessitated by the small size of the holdings, and the 

 cheaper and more abundant labor, have all resulted in a very different state of aff"iirs 

 regarding the damage which may be done by injurinus insects. In summarizing these 

 points, the Chief of the Agricultural Section of ihe Ministry of Agricuhure of Prussia, 

 in conversation with the writer last summer, argued that Germany does not need to 

 employ general economic entomologists; that its experiment stati ns seldom receive 

 applications for advice on entomoloijical topics. Speciil insects, it is true, occasionally 

 spring into prominence ; the Phylloxera is one of these, and in an emergency like the 

 Phylloxera outbreak, the work is handled by special commissions. European nations, 

 therefore, can afford to let the insect problem alone to a much greater extent th^c the 

 United States, for the reason that it is of mfiuitely less importance with them than with 

 us. The most simple remedies, such as handpickingj together with a rigid enforcement 

 ot the public regulatiims regarding hand df^struction, usually suffice to keep injurious 

 insects in check. Nevertheless, insect outbreaks do occasionally occur, and there is a 

 certain percentage of luss every year from the work of injurious species. The results 

 obtained in the; United States, where the number of native injurious st>eci<-s is much, 

 greater than in Europe, and where we have in addiiion to deal with a host of imported 

 species^in short, where the fighting of insect toes has become an absolute necessity — 

 have, however, acted to a certain degree as incentives, not only to other countries which 



