Fomona C>ollege Journal of Rntomology 



Volume IV F E B R U A R Y 1 9 1 2 Number 1 



RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 



BY THE EDITOR 



The beginning of the fourth volume of this Journal is an event to us. The 

 Journal has been an experiment from several points of view. Although it has 

 had contributors from many parts of the world, still it is distinctively a Southern 

 California product, supported largely by this region, and in large part serving 

 the economic and scientific interests of this particular commonwealth. 



Competent men throughout the world have been appreciative enough to name 

 it an important accession to scientific literature. We have labored hard to make 

 it thoroughly worthy of the progressive and highly intellectual community from 

 which it draws its support. Practical men have found in it, from time to time, 

 matter of immediate usefulness, or have seen in it that activity in matters of basic 

 importance which spells a safer and sounder practical life to humanity in years 

 to come. As Mr. Harwood said of Crawford's work on the Mexican Orange 

 Maggot, "Those results alone justify the expense of all these enterprises." We 

 cannot all be expert entomologists, even though our modern life is granted to be 

 one long battle between human beings and insects for the possession of the earth 

 — a battle which is yearly costing humanity countless millions in money and 

 myriads of lives — a battle which grows increasingly more complex as higher devel- 

 opment proceeds. Just as we cannot all be electrical engineers, even though 

 electricity is of daily use among us, or expert chemists, even though chemical 

 knowledge be the basis of most of our industrial activity. 



We desire the rapid development of electrical engineering, the deepest 

 technical investigation of every possible phase of it; we want the subject to be 

 absolutely mastered, with the ultimate end that electricity may become more 

 perfectly the servant of mankind — a universal source of strength. To serve this 

 purpose there are many technical electrical journals. We desire the existence of 

 these most earnestly even though they read like Greek to the layman, we commend 

 them, we recommend them, and we would think ill of any electrical engineer who 

 did not keep them at hand and use them as tools in his work and his studies. The 

 same principle holds in the relation of chemistry to industrial development, and 

 in the relation of entomology to agriculture, horticulture, and to public health. 

 The number of professional entomologists is as yet entirely too small to even 

 begin to support their necessary publications. So in this case we have turned to 

 practical men of broad intelligence and great outlook, and the response has been 

 hearty and vigorous. At the beginning of this year when Prof. Cook again laid 

 the matter before some of the most prominent citrus men we have in the South, 

 in all its varied and important bearings, they said, "This enterprise must be kept 

 alive and active." 



