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musing it as feod, others as materials for their nests. The rapidity of the work of 
destruction is astonishing, and in an incredibly short time, the giant which had 
taken hundreds of years to mature is reduced to mere dust, which serves as a 
fertilizer of the soil, and enables it to produce fresh trees to fill up the gap left by 
the one which has goue. 
It is questionable whether any good results would follow from giving 
statistics of the amount of damage done by insects at different times, for so 
enormous are the figures that could they even be appreciated they would not 
be believed by those who do not make a study of the matter. It was estimated 
‘by Mr. B. D. Walsh, a careful observer, that in 1861 the injury caused by insects 
in the State of Illinois alone amounted to twenty million dollars, and that the 
-damage done by insects in the United States cannot be less than three hundred 
million dollars annually. 
It may not be out of place here to say a few words with reference to 
scientific nomenclature. There appear very frequently in the different 
newspapers accounts of the depredations of insects, and, that these may be concise 
and explicit, it is absolutely necessary that some of the technical terms of 
Entomology should be used. But this is not pleasing to the agricultural classes, 
“ for,” say they, ‘‘ how do we know what such terms as hymenopterous, coleop- 
terous, or dipterous, which are so frequeutly applied to insects, mean ?” 
If they take an interest in their own affairs they should make a point of 
finding out what these terms mean. No one suffers more from these hosts than 
they do, and it is ridiculous to think of their remaining inactive spectators when 
it is in their power to avert, or at least, diminish the evil by following the 
instructions given in the works of Entomologists. To be in a position to do this 
they have simply to learn the meaning of about a score, at the most, of classical 
words. Now let us consider what would be the result of their taking this trouble. 
in the first place, Entomologists would be led to write brief and popular accounts 
of their researches, and in the second the farmers themselves might be enabled 
to furnish to more systematic students, as the result of their own observations, 
data of the greatest importance. Curtis in his “ Farm Insects,” expresses himself 
as follows: “It is a great mistake to suppose that scientific descriptions and nom- 
enclatare ought to be employed for the use of those only who are specially engaged 
in the study of Natural History. If insects be not thus accurately described, and 
their names learned carefully, the facts noticed by practical observers are generally 
worthless, and may tend to mislead, by the confusion of one species with another, 
and the subsequent adoption of improperremedies. It is thus that I have found, 
‘in extensive reading on these subjects, that a very large amount of the information 
given by practical agriculturalists and gardeners has proved valueless in cases 
where, if the particular species alluded to could only have been identified, it 
would have been of the greatest value in furthering subsequent investigations.” 
