26 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 4 



fied, and it is to be hoped tliat some one may complete tlie labor and 

 give us the results in some accessible published form. 



ANNOUNCING PROPOSED INVESTIGATIONS 



2. "To give opportunity' to individual workers of announcing pro- 

 posed investigations so as to bring out suggestions and avoid unne- 

 cessary duplication of work." This topic opens a broad field for the 

 discussion of various matters which have been of interest to this asso- 

 ciation since its organization. In general we have had but few such 

 outlines of proposed investigations, though there has been a hopeful 

 tendency to make use of this feature of our meetings in late years. 

 It must be evident, nevertheless, that with our present membership 

 it would be impossible for all to avail themselves of this privilege. 

 It must be equally evident to every thoughtful worker that there has 

 been and is an enormous waste of time and money in our investiga- 

 tions through a lack of reasonable cooperation. I would not urge 

 an avoidance of all duplication, or even an attempt to always secure 

 uniformity of method, though that is desirable as far as possible; 

 but is there any reason why several workers who are attacking the 

 same problem in different fields should not confer together in person 

 or by correspondence concerning the problem in hand, the methods 

 and results, so as to be of mutual help? There is a tendency on the 

 part of some to decline such publicity of their plans for fear that some 

 one else will proceed to make use of them, or that some one will appro- 

 priate their results. I suppose that entomologists are as prone to 

 the failings of human nature as any other set of men, and that the 

 honest and generous must always suffer from those whose consciences 

 seem somewhat dull in this regard, but I ask in all sincerity, are we to 

 base our relations to each other on the assumption that all our col- 

 leagues, or even any considerable number, will not treat our confi- 

 dence with all the consideration that we ourselves give and expect? 

 If so, I fear we need a revival of entomological ideals. Fortunately, 

 such is not the case. No man who is doing work worthy of recogni- 

 tion need ever fear that his reputation will suffer from that of hid 

 imitator, and I always have a lack of sympathy for the man who is 

 constantly fearing that his generosity will be abused. The slogan of 

 the age is "'Get together!" and we must remember that we are em- 

 ployed by the people to serve their best interests, and that we must 

 in honor avail ourselves of whatever means will best advance our 

 work to that end and best utilize the expenditure of public moneys. 



There has been a considerable advance along this line, and it is 

 now not infrequent for experiment station investigators who are work- 

 ing on the same problem to meet together and carefully consider the 



