February, '10] ENTOMOLOGISTS' DISCUSSION 33 



rapidly increasing and we find in our own experience that printed 

 circulars very much simplify the work of correspondence. We employ 

 the leaflets to supplement our letters. 



Mr. Sanderson: The idea of following up a letter at the proper 

 time with another one to ascertain whether the advice or suggestions 

 have been followed out has appealed to me, but I have not been able 

 to definitely prove the value of such a scheme when carried out sys- 

 tematically. At our station we have adopted the scheme of making 

 a card record of all inquiries of correspondents by the subjects of 

 their inquiries. There is cross reference to another card catalog ar- 

 ranged by post offices. This enables us at any time to refer to all of the 

 inquiries we have had upon any one of the leading subjects upon which 

 we have frequent inquiries. It has been my feeling that if occasion- 

 ally we could send a letter to these parties asking whether they had 

 followed out our suggestions and if so what the results were, that we 

 would find that in many cases the suggestions had not been properly 

 carried out and only partial success or failure had resulted. This 

 would be brought out by such correspondence and the correspondent 

 could be advised as to his trouble. Thus failure which would be blamed 

 on the station might many times be prevented. This is simply the 

 application of the methods used by every business office to the work 

 of station correspondence, and altho possibly it should come under 

 the work of an extension department rather than that of an experi- 

 ment station, it seems to me that it is highly desirable that some such 

 scheme be carried out. 



Mr. Walden: The timely information slips are prepared just in 

 advance of the proper time to combat the insect or disease to which 

 the slip refers, and are distributed among the difi'erent departments 

 of the Station to be inserted in all correspondence. For example, a 

 man may write to the Station inquiring about fertilizers ; the chemical 

 department wuU reply to this letter and enclose a slip regarding, per- 

 haps, the canker worm. The man may be interested in this matter, 

 and if the slip does not contain sufficient information will write to the 

 entomological department for more detailed instructions. 



We have in this way received inquiries from men who perhaps were 

 not familiar with work of our department, and I think we get in touch 

 with more people through these slips that we could in the ordinary 

 way. 



At 1.45 p. m. President Britton resumed the chair and called for 

 the next paper on the program, which w^as read by Mr. E. P. Felt, 

 Albany, N. Y., as follows : 



