296 ANNUAL REPORT. 



The followiug report was then presented by Prof. N. H. Winchell 

 of Minneapolis. 



ENTOMOLOGIST'S REPORT. 



Minneapolis, Minn., Jan. 19, 1886. 

 To the Minnesota Horticultural Society. 



Your partiality, a year ago, elected me, as a member of this Society, to the posi- 

 tion of State Entomologist. This was done in spite of my protestation of inability to 

 discharge the duties of the position. I can barely distinguish a coliopter from an 

 aphis, besides, my hands are more than full of fossils, minerals and rock-strata, not 

 to mention soils, clays, mineral waters and building stones. I am weighted down; 

 and sometimes I feel as if I should be swamped. 



Yet I do not want to ignore the action of this important Society, nor to decline 

 ungratefully the honor which you thrust upon me. In pursuance of the resolutions 

 of the Society some action was taken toward the proper legislation to make a per- 

 manent foundation for entomological work in the State, and I wish here simply to 

 relate those steps, as a kind of executive report, and to refer you to Mr. Oestlund 

 for more special facts relating to the entomology proper of the State. 



The resolutions adopted last year were as follows : 



ReHolved. That it is the sense of this Society that there should be appointed, and maintained, a 

 state entomologist, a resident of the State, who should be authorized and instructed to disseminate use- 

 ful information to the fruit growers and farmers of ihe State, respecting insects injurious to vegetation. 



Resolved. That the legislature now in session be reauested to make the necessary provision by the 

 enactment of the necessary law to carry out this plan, and by the appropriation of the sum of one 

 thousand dollars per annum for that purpose. 



Resolved. That it is the sense of this Society that the information desired should emenate from the 

 State University, and that such published information should be as rapidly and cheaply supplied as 

 possible with correctness and thoroughness. 



In accordance with these resolutious a bill was introduced in the House of Rep- 

 resentatives of the last legislature, intended to answer the demands of the fruit 

 growers, appropriating the sum of one thousand dollars per annum. It was re- 

 ferred to the proper committee, but wheu it came up for final action it was indefin- 

 itely postponed. Although there was a committee of this Society appointed to 

 confer with members of the legislature respecting it, yet it does not seem to have 

 been fairly presented before any committee, and was simply ignored from lack of 

 active friends. 



Still, though this effort failed, all was not lost. Through the agency of the geo- 

 logical and natural history survey, in previous years, some investigation in the ento- 

 mology of the State had been carried on by Mr. Allen Whitman, and some valuable 

 reports on the Rocky Mountain locust, by Mr. Whitman were published in the an- 

 nual reports of the survey in 1876 and 1877. I brought the matter again before the 

 Board of Regents,and recommended the resumption of entomological work.at least 

 in some directions. The funds of the survey do not warrant the full equipment of 

 this department, and it was not possible to employ a man fully and only on ento- 

 mology. Mr. Oes;t!und was aj-pointed to serve as a general aid in the laboratory 

 of the survey, and in the museum, with theiastructions to be engaged on all occa- 

 sions when his time and other work would permit, in his favorite pursuit of ento- 



