U ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



there has been wonderful development in connection with the facilities for acquiring 

 information in regard to agriculture. These things that I have mentioned I have no 

 doubt will be righted some day, and before long you will find the histories of this 

 country will not be filled merely with accounts of men killing one another, they will not 

 be filled merely with the names of persons who have occupied positions in towns and 

 cities, but you will find there the development of the people traced. A gentleman came 

 to me the other day who had for sale a book, dealing with the history of this country. 

 He said : " You will find there everything in connection with this country." I said : 

 " T will be very glad to get it, I have been looking for a great many things and have 

 not been able to find them." Now, before you go away we will just try it. I said ; 

 " When was the first Agricultural Society formed in Ontario ? " 1 dou't know," well, I 

 said, " that is of importance, is it not f Is there any organization or institution that 

 has done more to build up and develop the country, until probably within the last four 

 or five years, than the Agricultural Society ? It is of as much importance to know as 

 when a certain kind of industry was established in some town or city. I have been on 

 the search for it for the last five years, and finally I think I have nailed it down. There 

 is an utter absence of all these facts in regard to the agricultural development of the 

 country. Until we come down to the period of twenty-five or thirty years it has 

 almost all disappeared. They can tell you of the men who have been elected to Parlia- 

 ment from the very first up to now. They can give you the vote that was polled in 

 connection with any election. They can tell you, perhaps, when a certain new kind of 

 machinery was brought into the country. They cannot tell you when the first improve- 

 ment was made in connection with live stock, when the first thoroughbred live stock 

 came into the country. I say that it is of much importance to know when these 

 agricultural industries began and how they developed, because on these, rather than the 

 others, the prosperity of this country has been built up. My point is, there ought to 

 be a proper balance between these things and our histories should not be filled with 

 other events to the exclusion of those which are equally important. 



A wonderful change has taken place in the facilities for carrying on experimental 

 work and getting an agricultural education. Take this province, we have the Agricul- 

 tural College at Guelph and the Experimental Farm at Ottawa, from which our friend Mr. 

 Fletcher comes. We have a school or college of agriculture at Kingston, and now 

 we have a dairy school in the west at Strathroy, so we have four points in this province 

 from which comes information in regard to some of the later developments in agricul- 

 ture. Then we have six or eight diflferent points at which experiments in connection 

 with fiuit growing will be carried on. and there is a great development along that line. 

 Before long we will have this province dotted over with little stations from which the 

 latest information may be obtained, and each of these will be a centre leavening the whole 

 surrounding country. 



Then we have the societies. Beginning with the time of the organization of the Pro- 

 vince of Ontario in 1867, we have from then on had the organizition of society after socie y. 

 till now we have three dairy associations, two poultry associations, the fruit growers, 

 the bee-keepers and the sheep-breeders and the swine-breeders, and a great many other 

 stock associations, and last, but not least that association to which we are indebted to- 

 night for this meeting, the Entomological Society which has now been carrying on its 

 work most successfully for the last twenty-five years. I think these societies have all 

 been accomplishina; a great deal of good in this country. Some may say they do not get 

 any great benefit, they do not come in immediate contact with the Entomological Society, 

 but each one of these men so to speak becomes a source of information and as they go 

 from these meetings to their homes, to this point and the other, they give out their in- 

 formation. They also come in contact with other men through their writings. 



This Society has been quietly doing one of the most important works in connection 

 with agriculture in this province. If these gentlemen were not present I might say 

 something even a little more flattering with regard to them. I have had occasion from 

 year to year of examining the reports of their meetings which they have sent out, because 

 they are published in the department to which I am attached and I can simply say this, 



