ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 83 



economic relation to the host. This important information can be best and most reb'ably 

 supplied by specialists who are studying the difierent families of insects, and by those 

 who will make a study of the food habits and life history of certain classes of insects 

 which infest forest growth, such as foliage-infesting, bark-infesting, and wood-infesting 

 insects, etc., as special lines of research. 



If specialists in the.se various lines will keep in mind the importance of noting the 

 host relations of the species they collect or observe on forest growth, and will publish the 

 knowledge thus obtained, together with lists of species taken on the various economic 

 forest trees, they will contribute valuable service to the country in the rapid advance- 

 ment of forestry entomology. 



Mr. Webster read the following paper : 



THE IMPORTATION AND REPRESSION OF DESTRUCTIVE INSECTS. 



By F. M, Webster, Wooster, Ohio. 



In the year 17 95 my topic would have sounded remarkably visionary and illogical ;. 

 not that it was not known that destructive insects were being brought into this country 

 from England and Europe, but that there should be any united action to prevent such 

 importations, or to suppress them after being introduced, would heve sounded unreason- 

 able and unpractical. But, come to think of it, can we name a single imported insect 

 that has been repressed, or, in fact, has been seriously impeded in its diffusion over the 

 country, by any gj?stematic obstacles placed in its way by the action of man ? Is it not 

 nearer the truth to say that we have, as a people, assisted this sort of immigrants, both in 

 reaching this country and in getting inland as fast as possible after they had landed ? 

 Our entomologists have increased in numbers and efficiency to deal with these pests, but 

 I do not know of a single one that we have prevented from coming to this country or 

 stamped out after it had reached here.* That we have and are saving the country 

 millions of dollars annually by our advice and experiments I freely admit, but that is 

 only a temporary relief, and by no means a protection against luture depredations and 

 losses. Now, there must be something the matter somewhere, and if not with the 

 entomologists, as I feel that it certainly is not, then wherein lies the obstacle 1 Entom- 

 ologists do not make the laws, nor are we always able to get those properly enforced that 

 we do have; but that does not settle the problem. For my own part, I have very little 

 faith in State laws, even if they could be enacted, and have often asked myself the ques- 

 tion whether or not it was possible for a republican government, composed of minor 

 governments, possibly, as in our case, numbering nearly half a hundred to protect its 

 people from the immense losses occasioned yearly by destructive insects whose place of 

 nativity is known to be thousands of miles away and acroife wide stretches of ocean which 

 they could never have crossed unaided. 



At present we seem unable to deal with the problem intelligently and practically, 

 even within our own borders. We can not, as a people, protect ourselves from each 

 other, much less from countries who very naturally have less regard for us than we have 

 for ourselves. It was with such feelings that I watched the diffusion of the San Jose 

 scale, even after it had been located. Here was a simple problem in national economic 

 entomology, and the question appeared to me to be composed of two propositions, viz: 

 Could we do anything with it 1 and if so, what would be the importance of the entomol- 

 ogist in this transaction ? We have been steadily gaining strength during the last quarter 

 of a century, and I was a little desirous of seeing how powerful we were getting to be, 

 how much we could do to stop the spread of this pest, as well as to effect its extermina- 

 tion where it had already gained a foot-hold. True, we had no laws to sustain us ; but 

 if we could but show the necessity for them we would have accomplished much, for, while 



*See appended note at the end of this paper. 



