April, '19] O'KANE: LIMITATIONS IN INSECT SUPPRESSION 159 



these will fail because they will delegate the work to others who will 

 prove incompetent or because they themselves will, on account of their 

 multiplicity of interests, fail to move at the right time. 



In contrast to these favored individuals there are many others, 

 probably a majority, who lack the means, the time or the understand- 

 ing to carry out real control measures. Their intentions may be 

 excellent but their performance will not average high. 



Against this idea it may be argued that statutes can provide for 

 compulsory suppression, requiring a property owner to take certain 

 measures, and can make a further provision that, if he fails, the work 

 shall be done by a public official and the cost charged against the 

 property as a part of his taxes. This will not necessarily succeed. No 

 statute can make a man do thorough work if he is inclined to be care- 

 less. No law can teach every individual that adherence to some 

 seemingly unimportant detail may be the key to success in control. 



Furthermore, there is a definite limitation as to the amount of cost 

 that the statutes may charge against a property. This is true whether 

 the law requires the owner to do certain work or whether it provides 

 that the work shall be done by a public official and the expense charged 

 in the taxes. In either event it is necessary to limit the charge to 

 some percentage of the assessed valuation of the property concerned. 

 The maximum percentage that appears allowable is one half of 1 per 

 cent. To assess that much means, usually, to increase ordinary taxes 

 by 25 per cent. But one half of 1 per cent for a farm assessed at So, 000 

 is only $25, and the latter sum may be only a tenth of the actual cost 

 of the work that should be done on the property in question. 



If it be argued, in turn, that the state or federal government may 

 properly assume the remainder, the reply is that the government had 

 better assume the whole thing and do the job, thus placing it in the 

 hands of trained men who have that one thing on their mind and 

 whose duty it is to perform the task completely and at the proper time. 



If, however, the campaign of suppression at hand is one of more 

 liberal interpretation, in which the aim is to mitigate the damage done, 

 to retard spread, to establish natural enemies, in other words, to accept 

 the pest as a new member of the fauna, but to bring it to the lowest 

 possible level of normal abundance, then there is good reason for 

 asking the property owner to assume from the start an individual share 

 in the burden of control. Indeed, to do anything else is to convey to 

 the mind of the people an impression that the state or federal govern- 

 ment is going to assume full responsibility for the pest in question and 

 that the private property owner need not concern himself about it, 

 cither now or in the future. 



To get the individual to conduct proper control incMsurcs means to 



