32 JOURNAL OP ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 2 



This imperfect sketch and discussion of the cornfield situation may 

 serve to illustrate the value of the ecological view in compelling a 

 comprehensive survey of the general field in which an entomological 

 problem is involved, and a careful mustering and orderly assembling 

 of its whole content, insuring us against the overlooking of any sig- 

 nificant factor or the overweighting of any minor element. Whether 

 we use the terms of ecological discussion or not, we treat our subject 

 imperfectly if we do not use its methods and draw our data horn, its 

 whole domain. 



To these general suggestions, looking towards the development of 

 our methods of investigation, I will onty add a point or two pertaining 

 to the other side of our relationship. If entomology were the sole 

 subject of our study, we might be satisfied with our progress il we 

 were merely contributing to the sum of available knowledge on that 

 subject; but if it is our special task to aid in the general work of im- 

 proving the conditions of life for our people, then we can only rest 

 satisfied when we see that the conditions of their life have actually 

 been improved. I sometimes think that only the simpler and easier 

 part of our work has been done w^hen we have discovered the truth, 

 and that the task of making it to prevail in the practice of life is much 

 the more arduous and difficult. Until we, or some one else for us, 

 can hitch fact to practice, we are as helpless to move towards our 

 main end as is a teamster with a loaded wagon who has no harness 

 for his team. 



A general practical use of our material results is, moreover, the in- 

 dispensable verification of them, preceding which they are economic 

 hypotheses only; and we can no more stop short of this final test 

 than the physicist can omit the verification process in his experimental 

 studies. Anything which will help us to bring to bear on our con- 

 clusions this test of average use under the ordinary conditions of eco- 

 nomic operation must be most welcome to us, and I hope that we may 

 get the light of each other's experience and the help of each other's 

 suggestions on this most difficult part of our duty. I have lately 

 found great advantage in the establishment, in relation to the work of 

 my office, of an advisory committee, consisting, in this case, of the 

 director of the agricultural experiment station of the state, and of 

 two representatives of the State Horticultural Society appointed by its 

 president, and two representatives of the State Farmers' Institute. 

 This committee, meeting at the call of the entomologist and in con- 

 sultation with him, takes his plans under consideration and approves, 

 amends or rejects them, according to their judgment, after full state- 

 ment and discussion. The law by which it is constituted, passed at 



