Report of the State Entomologist 337 



caterpillars will surely be destroyed ; and if auy escape, it will be 

 because of some neglect or ignorance in the use of the insecticide " 

 He is not positive that the insects " can be exterminated in a single 

 year, but entertains no doubt but that, if the work of showering be 

 continued during the months of April and May for two or three years, 

 under competent direction, that they may be entirely destroyed."* 



Progress in Insect Studies. 



Passing now to another division of my paper, may I speak briefl}'' 

 of the progress being made in insect studies, particularly as they 

 relate to the control of insect depredations. 



After having been laboring for many years in a field of study in 

 which the forms requiring investigation are far more numerous than 

 all the other classes of the animal kingdom combined — with but few, 

 perhaps ten or twelve, co-laboi-ers throughout the United States, and 

 with results not always meeting the demand from our agriculturists 

 for aid in times of need — it affords me more gratification than I can 

 express, to be able to report a progress in economic entomology, such 

 as I had not dared to hope ever to see. Those of you who have had 

 hard experiences in your gardens and elsewhere in fighting some of 

 our most common insect pests, such as the wire-worm, the white-grub, 

 the rose-bug, the cucumber-beetle, and the cabbage-worm, should 

 also rejoice with me that these, together with many others of the 

 kind, will in all probability, ere long, be brought under such control 

 that serious injury from them can be prevented. Scores of enthusi- 

 astic workers are now engaged in earnest study of the successive 

 stages in the lives of our more injurious insects, that their most 

 vulnerable points may be learned, and in experiments which shall 

 indicate the most simple, inexpensive, and efficient method of dealing 

 with each insect pest. No preceding year has marked so great an 

 advance in apj)lied entomology as has the last. 



Entomologists of the Agricultural Experiment Stations. 

 This is the direct result of the beneficent provisions of what is 

 commonly known as the "Hatch Act" of the 49th Congress, of 

 1887, for the establishment of an Agricultural Experiment Station 

 in each of the United States, to embrace those departments of 

 investigation and experiment which will bear most directly on the 

 agricultural industry of the respective states. Thirty of these stations 



* An appropriation of $25,ooo has since been made by the Massachusetts legislature 

 for the extermination of the moth, and three commissioners have been appointed by the 

 Governor who have already (in March) entered upon their work. Since the above was 

 written the insect has spread over a considerably larger territory. 



