10 PROTECTION OF PLANTS, 1921-22 



of Montreal, and Dr. Thomas W. Fyles, of Ottawa, in 1921, remove two charter 

 members and active workers whom the society can ill afford to lose. Still 

 more recently we have to lament the death of Mr. Lachlan Gibb, of ^Montreal 

 and London, England, who found time, during his occasional visits to Montreal, 

 to attend our annual meetings. 



As the papers and discussions at most of our meetings have been largely 

 devoted to the consideration of the enemies of field, orchard and garden crops^ 

 the Executive Committee considered it advisable to put on a programme this 

 3^ear that would make a special feature of forest and shade trees. No one now- 

 adays questions the importance of our forests as a great natural resource, but 

 the truth has been forced upon us in recent years that this supposedly illimit- 

 able forest supply is becoming perilously endangered and that it is only a 

 matter of a few years before the forest areas will fail to supply the demand upon 

 them unless strenuous measures be taken quickly to control reckless cutting, 

 the insect and fungous enemies and fire and to initiate a vigorous policy of 

 replanting. These matters will be dealt with at length by the speakers whose 

 names appear on the programme, and there is no need for me to saj' more along 

 this line at this time. 



This is my fourteenth Presidential Address, and I have attempted in 

 every address to discuss some topic of general interest to the members of the 

 Societ}'. This time I shall take the liberty of presenting a few notes on the 

 forests entomologists who have made large contributions to the science of 

 forest entomology — the men who laid the foundations of our knowledge of 

 forest insects. 



We must look to Europe for the first investigations into the life and habits 

 of forest insects, for there first was felt the need for action looking toward 

 the conservation of forests. 



These investigations do not date very far back — in fact less than a hundred 

 years. The most prominent workers were Kollar, Ratzeburg, Eichhoff, Kalten- 

 bach, Perris, Nordlinger, Henschel, Taschenberg and Judeich and Nitsche. In 

 Germany and France, Forestry Schools were established early and in all of 

 these forest entomolog^^ was studied. 



In an}' consideration of the investigators of insects affecting trees, we have 

 to distinguish between those men who were mostly systematists and those who 

 devoted most of their studies to the life and habits of the insects. The former 

 group contains a larger number of workers than the latter. To such belong 

 Lin7iaeus (1707-1778) who gave us the system of binomial nomenclature, and 

 was perhaps the greatest among systematists. Fabricius (1748-1808) a Dane, 

 was also a great sj^stematist and described a large number of forest insects. 

 Reaumur oi France (1QS3-17 57) and DeGeer (1720-1778) of Sweden, combined 

 a study of life and habits of insects with that of description, and both left impor- 

 tant works which belong to the great classics of entomology. The Englishmen 

 Kirhy, Leach and McLeary; the Frenchmen Guenee, Latreille, Bonnet and Olivier; 



