1919 EXTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 49 



seeing an impending outbreak, even though skeptical of the value of recommended 

 control measures, will usually follow a practice if the materials are furnished 

 free, or he may feel that since he will pay his share anyway in the form of taxes, 

 he may as well get that which is coming to him. This method of procedure seems 

 adaptable for fighting such insects as grasshoppers where the principal problem 

 is procuring the materials but it does not answer the question of the wheat 

 grower who wishes to protect Ins crop from Hessian fly by certain cultural prac- 

 tices. This brings us to the second method, namely, control by legal process. 

 For years certain of the States have had laws requiring the spraying of orchards 

 infested with San Jose Scale and other insects and nearly every State has a 

 nursery inspection law requiring inspection of all nursery stock by competent 

 inspectors, to prevent the spread of noxious insects. More recently. Dr. S. A. 

 Forbes has advocated laws requiring a general use of all reasonable and practicable 

 measures for the control of insect pests likely to spread from infested fields to 

 the injury of the property of others, for. as Dr. Forbes has said, " Why should 

 the farmer allow, the chinch-bugs he has raised in his wheat to escape into his 

 neighbor's corn any more than he should allow his cattle to break out of their 

 ])astures to feed on that neighbor's crops?"* Such a law is now in 'force in 

 Illinois. The requirement of certain practices to safeguard the community by 

 legal process is not uncommon in certain countries where it has proved an 

 advantage and there seems to be no reason why the same requirements might not 

 l)e an advantage in our own countries. 



The conditions resulting from the war are giving the entomologist a greater 

 opportunity to prove and illustrate the value of his work and are showing to him 

 liis shortcomings. With these changing conditions and especially with the coming 

 of the county agent or district agricultural expert the duties of the economic 

 entomologist are changing or, probably better, being advanced. The entomologist 

 of the future must continue to investigate the problems dealing with the life 

 histories of insects and to give practical demonstrations of the control measures 

 and especially to standardize entomological practices. He must in addition delve 

 deeper into the mysteries of insect life in its relation to physical and biological 

 factors, especially meteorological influences and the changing field conditions 

 due to varying crop rotations, more intensive farm practices, and the like. These 

 will lead to another important phase of the future entomologist's activities, namely, 

 the forecasting of insect outbreaks ; in fact, we are already able and are making 

 general forecasts of possible insect troubles, especially such insects as the Hef»"-ian 

 fly. chinch bug, grasshopper, plant lice, and white grub. Our efforts thus far 

 are quite primitive and not altogether certain but the speaker believes it will be 

 a matter of but comparatively few years until the forecasting of the scarcity or 

 al)undance of this or that insect will be a routine, and an important routine, of 

 the entomologist's office. 



In a recent articlef I had occpsion to discuss the relation of entomology to 

 allied agricultural subjects and attempted to point out the importance of co-ordi- 

 nating our work with that of the agronomist, the horticulturist and others and 

 the work of the entomologist of the near future, as I see it, makes this action not 

 only desirable but imperative. To a like degree is it important for the student 

 specializing in economic entomology to study entomology not as a subject bv itself 



*The insect, the faraier. the teacher, the citV^en and the state. Illinois State Labor- 

 atory of Natural History, 1915. p. 12. 



tJour. Econ. Ent. Vol. 11, No. 5, Oct. 1918, p. 406. 



