66 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OP THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



A NEW PHINCIPLE OF PROTECTION FROM INSECT ATTACK.* 



It will readily be conceded that the use of preventives, whenever 

 practicable, is more economical, more effective, and often more con- 

 venient than a resort to remedies. Au old familiar adage affirms this 

 truth, when it asserts that "an ounce of prevention is better than a 

 pound of cure." 



It has been claimed by some of our economic entomologists, that the 

 most valuable methods of prevention are to be found in the husbandry 

 that tends to promote healthful and vigorous plant growth, impart- 

 ing strength and vitality which will greatly lessen insect injury, and 

 in the clean culture which shall remove from the garden, orchard, and 

 field, valueless harborage and protection for insect hibernation and 

 transformation. 



The results of recent experiments with various substances in the ef- 

 fort to find those that shall best enable us to control insect depreda- 

 tions, have led me to believe that we have, within our reach, still more 

 valuable preventives than the above, in certain substances, which, ap- 

 plied to the soil, or to the plant directly, shall furnish us a safeguard 

 against the deposit of insect eggs. 



The great benefit of commencing our efforts at this point is so ob- 

 Yious as to need no words to commend it. It would not be " nipping 

 in the bud," or " crushing in the egg." It is prior to and beyond these. 

 If no Qgg be deposited, we have no artfully concealed egg to search 

 for; no larva, whose rapacity and destructiveness we must arrest; no 

 pupa, whose retreat is to be discovered, and no imago, whose egg-dis- 

 tended abdomen is fraught with evil, to be captured or entrapped — 

 in short, we have dispensed with the four insect stages that require 

 such unwearied and unending investigation in order to ascertain the 

 most vulnerable point of attack of insect life, and the best means with 

 which to assail it. 



How may the deposit of eggs be prevented. — It may be pre- 

 vented by applying to the plant or to the soil certain odorous .sub- 

 stances which are popularly believed to be disagreeable to the insect, 

 and therefore, to drive it away. Such substances have been termed 

 "repellants," but we doubt that they exert a repellant force, and we 

 believe the name to be a misnomer. 



Among these substances may be mentioned kerosene oil, coal-tar, 



*The following pages in which this topic is discussed have already been published in the 

 Proceedings of the Western N. T. Horticultural Society, 1882, slightly modified in some 

 portions to adapt it for presentation as a Society paper. The new views advanced are not 

 offered as proven truths. They have been but recently conceived, without the opportunity 

 of maturing them or of submitting them to the varied tests by which they should be tried, 

 and therefore, they can only claim, at present, theoretic value. 



