8 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 6 



the field, both contemporaneous and succeeding, shall be able to esti- 

 mate its value and arrange their investigations in accordance therewith. 



Too much of the basic data are even yet omitted and the mere 

 conclusions stated. Conclusions are worth little to the investigator, 

 unless he knows the data on which they are founded. This habit of 

 reporting conclusions merely is probably largely due to the necessity un- 

 der which entomologists have long been laboring, of stating their results 

 in a purely non-technical manner, both for the purpose of saving ex- 

 pense and for rendering the publication "popular." This tendency 

 your committee deplores as one not merely retarding the progress of 

 our science ; but as one exhibiting poor business j udgment. Ultimately 

 from the standpoint of the public, which we serve, any investigation 

 sufficiently important to induce us to spend our time and the public 

 money upon it must be of enough importance to merit a report suffi- 

 ciently full that our co-laborers can plainly see from perusing it the 

 reasons for the "faith that is in us". or public funds will have been 

 improperly expended. 



Your committee believes that every station where entomological 

 •investigations are pursued and the results published, should have at 

 least two series of publications, in one of which data derived from 

 investigations can be so fully stated that workers in other places can 

 draw their own conclusions therefrom, and in the other of which the 

 practical economic outcome of the investigations can be stated in non- 

 technical language for the benefit of the general public. 



The qualities of an investigation which render it usable by co- 

 workers are: (1) clear and definite presentation of its relation to pre- 

 ceding work; (2) clear and illuminating arrangement of the new data; 

 (3) a conservative interpretation of the meaning of these data. The 

 first of these points involves a brief but lucid statement of progress 

 along the particul^ line to the point where the investigator begins his 

 work, and the writer should take especial care to make the references 

 very definite. The second and third points need no amplification as 

 they are already sufficiently explicit. 



Your committee feels that the importance of meteorological condi- 

 tions is such that wherever life history studies are made meteorologi- 

 cal records should be kept and that they should be included in the final 

 report. 



Your committee believes that the percentage of investigations de- 

 voted to the discovery of general laws of reaction is too small, and 

 that the science of economic entomology is now held back by this 

 condition. It desires to urge upon those whose conditions perinit, 

 and inclinations adapt, the high importance of emphasizing this phase 

 of entomological investigation. 



