KEl'ORT OF THE COMMISSIONEK Ut AUKlUULTURE. 13 



considers tbat, niider conditions the most favorable to grasshopper iii 

 crease, the injury can never be as widespread as it has been in the past, 

 owing to the advance and increase in settlement in the Northwest. 



Other destructive insects have been very numerous, and a series oi 

 test experiments have been made by agents stationed in New Jersey, 

 Indiana, and Iowa, with many insecticides which have been recom- 

 mended but never thoroughly tested. 



In response to an evident want a station has been established, in 

 charge of a competent agent, at Aurora, 111., for purposes of experi 

 ment in regard to apiculture. The objects are: To secure the intro- 

 duction and domestication of such races of bees as are reported to pos- 

 sess desirable traits and characteristics ; to prove by experiments their 

 value to the agriculturist of the United States, and their adaptation to 

 our climate and honey-prodliciug flora 5 to make experiments in the 

 crossing and mingling of races, and endeavor to secure the type 

 or types best adapted to the uses of our bee-keepers ; to make experi- 

 ments in the methods of artificial fertilization ; to test the various 

 methods of preparing bees for winter ; to study the true causes of dis- 

 eases yet imperfectly understood, and the best methods of preventing 

 or curing them, and to obtain facts as to the injury to fruit by bees. 



Another new field of investigation has been added to the division by 

 the appropriation by the last Congress of $5,000 to be devoted to the 

 "promotion of economic ornithology, or to the study of the interrela- 

 tion of birds and agriculture, an investigation of the food, habits, and 

 migration of birds in relation to both insects and plants." I have com- 

 missioned Dr. C. Hart Merriam, the chairman of the committee on 

 migration of the Ornithologists' Union, to act with the Entomologist in 

 this matter, and circulars have been prepared and sent out, and the 

 work is now progressing in such a way as to promise solid and valuable 

 results. 



The work of the division in relation to silk-culture has largely in- 

 creased, and a corresponding addition has been made to the clerical force 

 of the office. Silk-worm eggs have been distributed in response t^ a 

 very large number of applications coming from all parts of the Union. 

 Many have also been supplied with mulberry trees by co-operation with 

 the Superintendent of Gardens and Grounds. Attention has been given 

 to the establishment of a market for silk cocoons, with a view to over- 

 coming the difficulties which have thus far been found to lie in the path 

 of the silk-raiser in this direction . The cheax^ness of foreigb labor comes 

 more actively into competition with the industry of manufacturiug raw 

 silk from the cocoon than it does with the raising of the cocoon itself. 

 In the former case, the workshops are open all the year round, giving 

 constant employment to their operatives, who must therefore look to this 

 trade alone for their livelihood ; in the latter, there is only work enough 

 to occupy the silk-raiser six weeks in the spring and early summer ; 



