12 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



result of investigation ; that these little knots are filled with very minute organisms very 

 difficult to describe, very minute specks somewhat similiar to the very minute specks we 

 find in yeast These are living in the roots like little parasites and the effect of their 

 living there is to take up nitrogen from the air and in some way to give it to the plant 

 for its subsistence^ so that whenever one of these nodules comes on the clover root we 

 find it has the means of taking up food out of the air, and then when we turn over the 

 plant and allow it to decay in the soil, we put in the soil a certain amount of food that 

 this plant has taken up out of the air ; and the result of it is there is an excess of food 

 there for the next plant that comes along. Now the wheat does not possess that little 

 nodule and it does not take up the nitrogen out of the air, and the result has been that, 

 that little investigation, — little we may call it, yet momentous in its results — has estab- 

 lished the practice of preceding the wheat crop by a crop such as clover, or peas or 

 beans. 



Let me give you one instance in connection with entomology which has seemed 

 to me since T read it some years ago, almost like a fairy tale. I will give it to you 

 just as it stands. About eight or nine years ago the complete destruction of the 

 orange groves of California was threatened by the spread of an insect known as the 

 cottony-cushion scale. This insect was covering the limbs of the trees and the result was 

 the vitality was being sucked right out of these trees by millions of tiny insects. The 

 pest got completely beyond the control of the fruit growers of that country and in 

 their despair they appealed for help to somebody or anybody. Professor Riley who was 

 in charge of the Entomological Department at Washington, and who unfortunately met 

 his death this year, — one of the greatest benefactors the American people has ever known 

 — at once began the investigation of that question. Being an expert entomologist he knew 

 practically every country in the world where that scale insect was common and he knew 

 that the most likely place from which it had come was Australia. It had probably been 

 introduced some twenty years before that, in bringing in fruit trees or vines from Aus- 

 tralia. He however knew it had never become a pest in Australia. Now if it is found 

 in Australia and later found in California and has become a pest in California and has not 

 become a pest in Australia, he concluded that there must be something in Australia that 

 will stop it, so he despatched two assistants to Australia to investigate it and they sent 

 back consignments of lad^- bug beetles or lady-bugs as they are commonly known. You 

 have seen these running back and forth over the leaves and branches of the fruit trees 

 doing great destruction to the other insects. Within a very short time, less than a year, 

 although these scale insects had been increasing for twenty years and practically had the 

 products cf California by the throat, and in fact had taken possession of the country ; in 

 Jess than a year, this little lady-bug increased to such quantities that it swept the scale 

 out of existence or got it into such control, that the fruit interests of California were 

 saved. (Applause). I do not suppose that anybody could sit down and figure up the 

 amount of money that was saved or made for the United States by that simple little 

 insect brought in by a man known to very few presort. You do not see his name promi- 

 nent in the newspapers. The fact was not heralded broadcast in great flaming type. He 

 was not given any great ovation. It is a question whether any monument will be erected 

 to him by the United States, yet it is doubtful whether the United States has had any 

 greater benefactor than that man and his associates. 



Take the potato bug, what would we do to-day if we did not know that simply by 

 dusting Paris green on potato plants we could effectually head off and kill the potato 

 beetle. We could not raise potatoes at all. Where has that come from 1 It was not 

 picked up by chance, somebody did not sit down one day and write to the paper that 

 he thought that if you dust the potato bug with Paris green you would stop it. Back of 

 that was careful investigation by these same men who study the habits, mode, and living 

 and all about the potato bug. We might go on and give instance after instance. A great 

 many of the various methods that are being practised today, many of the best practices 

 we have in connection with agriculture today have come, not by hap hazard or by chance, . 

 but have been worked out by men on small salaries, working in obscure places, who have 

 devoted themselves to their work with such energy as we have not had surpassed in any 

 other calling, I care not what one you mention. 



