(A) 



ENTOMOLOGICAL ADDRESSES. 



SOME INJURIOUS INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



[Read before the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture at its Country Meeting at 

 Framingham, December 8d, 1885.] 



Gentlemen. — Before proceeding to discharge tlie pleasant dnty 

 that I have undertaken in compliance with the kind request that 

 you, tlirough yonr secretarv, have done me the honor of making, — 

 that I wonld give jou some practical remarks on insects with 

 \\'hieh you liave to contend in your fanming operations, — will 

 yooi please allow me a few preliminary words. 



Always glad, as I am, of an opportunity to commend the import- 

 ance of the study of economic entomology, and to give some 

 evidence of what it has accomplished, it is with more than 

 ordinary pleasure that I am permitted to address the Massa;Chusett6 

 State Board of Agriculture. Not because I have been assured that 

 I would find an appreciative audience, but that I can avail myself 

 of the occasion to make public acknowledgment of the debt of 

 gratitude that American agriculture owes to you, to those who 

 have preceded you, and to your State, for what you have done in the 

 promotion of economic entomology. 



Here in Massachusetts the science had its birth, and to the 

 fostering care that it has continued to receive we are largely 

 indebted for the proud x>osition that it at present holds. 



Nearly a century ago — in the year 1793 — ■ a prize was offered 

 by the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture, for the 

 best essay to be presented to it upon the " canlver-worm," — an 

 insect which, according to a statement made in the " New England 

 Farmer" in 1790, had at that time been a destructive pest in 

 many portions of New England for fifty yeai«. The prisue was 

 awarded by the society to William Dandridge Peck, for his paper 



