12 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 1 



will thread its way into some definite economic problem, or when a 

 commonly recognized condition will induce a purely scientific search 

 for the unknown cause. 



In selecting for discussion at this time the relation of the economic 

 entomologist to agriculture, it is not my purpose to restrict the in- 

 terpretation of this relation to that which prevailed nearly a quarter 

 of a century ago, when this Association was instituted, but to point out 

 that larger interpretation which the wave of interest in agricultural 

 education and investigation justifies, and which will be realized unless 

 misdirection from one cause or another shall materially affect the 

 present tide. Agriculture is in need of the entomologist, and the 

 entomologist has a fruitful field in agriculture. 



In the United States the land-grant colleges, made possible by the 

 Morrill Act, in 1862, sent out the first organized tracer after a lost 

 agriculture. A study of the history of many of these colleges in the 

 light of present agricultural conditions indicates that the men who 

 were placed in charge of these initial institutions were oftentimes with- 

 out an agricultural compass and, what is worse, were without the sym- 

 pathy and support of the people for whom the effort was being made. 

 Hence, there was much time lost in adjusting a modern movement to 

 old-time conditions. Not until the Hatch Act was put into operation, 

 and investigational work was set in motion, did the complex nature of 

 agriculture begin to be apparent. Through independent efforts of 

 pioneer entomologists in some of the states, entomology had already 

 found a place in the agricultural schedule, and upon the organization 

 of the state experiment stations, entomologists were placed on the 

 staffs ; or the subject had won sufficient recognition to be associated 

 with departments of biology or horticulture, already a part of the col- 

 leges with which the stations were affiliated. 



The relation of economic entomology to agriculture was recognized 

 by the nation prior to 1887, and, while not specified in the Hatch Act, 

 its real relation to a state's agriculture was no doubt a part of the 

 general conception of the author of the bill which gave each state an 

 institution for agricultural investigation. 



Some of the colleges receiving the benefits of the Morrill Act were 

 giving limited courses in entomology at the time the experiment sta- 

 tions were organized. In others the number of insect forms had given 

 taxonomic value to the study of entomolgy in zoological courses ; while 

 in others the economic aspect of insects was incidentally emphasized 

 by the horticulturist or agriculturist in connection with some orchard, 

 garden, or field pest. 



Are we not justified in concluding, then, that when the spirit of in- 

 vestigation became effective in agriculture, economic entomology re- 



