1916] Entomology iji the British Empt 



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few rivers and lakes we are compelled to experience many of 

 your entomological troubles and to receive the generoua over- 

 flow your hospitality to foreign invaders provides. But while 

 we may have to study the control of the same insects that occur 

 in the United States, it does not necessarily follow that our 

 methods will be the same. In many cases the environmental 

 conditions m Canada, particularly in the matter of cHmate are 

 different with a resultant difference in insect behaviour 'and 

 therefore m control. Accordingly, in our entomological work 

 we are taking nothing for granted, except where we are com- 

 pelled, but we are working out our own problems de novo. 



While applied entomology was officially recognized in Can- 

 ada as early as 1856 it did not have its real birth until 1869 six 

 years after the estabHshment of the Canadian Entomological 

 Society, now the Entomological Society of Ontario by reason of 

 a provincial grant and charter. The recognition and support 

 ot this Society by the Province of Ontario constituted the only 

 official step m applied entomology until the appointment of 

 Ur. James Fletcher by the Dominion Government in 1884 as 

 Government Entomologist. The Dominion Experimental Farms 

 were estabhshed in 1886 and to this Branch of the Department 

 Dr. Fletcher was attached as Entomologist and Botanist until 

 his death m 1908. A separate Division of Entomology of the 

 Experimental Farms Branch was then created and I was 

 entrusted with the organization on my appointment in 1909 

 as Dommion Entomologist. In 1910 the Destructive Insect 

 and Pest Act was passed and in 1911 the first Dominion Field 

 Laboratory was established; these two facts are indicative of 

 the two chief lines of the Dominion work— administrative and 

 investigatory— and the development of the work along these 

 special lines led in 1914 to the separation of the entomological 

 service from the Experimental Farms Branch and its elevation 

 to the status of an independent Branch of the Department of 

 Agriculture. The sanction of the Dominion Parliament to 

 increased appropriations which are now more in accord with 

 the needs of the country is encouraging evidence of a desire to 

 afford the means whereby the entomological service of the 

 Dominion shall be in a better position to meet the requirements 

 of the situation. 



