206 



NovciiiWt'r mid the amount of material sent on for determinatiou would 

 indicate that the building up of a grand national reference collection 

 will be most useful to the station workers ; but to do this satisfactorily 

 we need your cooperation, and I appeal to all entomologists to aid in 

 this effort by sending duplicates of their types to Washington, and 

 thus more fully insuring against ultimate loss thereof. 



STATUS OF OUR SOCIETY. 



This train of thought brings up the question of the status of our so- 

 ciety with the station entomologists as represented by the committee of 

 the general Association. Those of us who had desired a national asso- 

 ciation for the various purposes for which such associations are iormed 

 felt, I believe, if I may speak for them, that the creation of the different 

 experiment stations rendered such an organization feasible. Your or- 

 ganization at Toronto and the constitution adopted and amended at the 

 meeting at Washington all indicate that the chief object was the ad- 

 vancement of our chosen work and that the strength of the association 

 would come from the experiment station entomologists. There was 

 then no other organization of the kind, nor any intimation that such an 

 one would be founded. Some of us, therefore, were surprised to learn 

 from the circular sent out by Professor Forbes, its chairman, that the 

 committee appointed by the Association of Agricultural Colleges and 

 Experiment Stations, and through which we had hoped to communicate 

 and cooperate with that Association, was not in the proper sense a com- 

 mittee, but a section which has prepared (and in fact was required by 

 the executive committee and the rules of the superior body to prepare) 

 a program of papers and discussions for the meeting to be held at the 

 same time and place with our own. I can not but feel that this is, in 

 some respects, a misfortune, and it will devolve upon you, as a conse- 

 quence, to decide upon several questions of importance that will ma- 

 terially affect our future existence. 



That there is not room for two national organizations having the 

 same objects in view and meeting at the same time and place goes, I 

 think, without saying ; and if the committee of the general Association 

 is to be anything more than a committee in the proper sense of the 

 word, or if it is to assume, with or without formal constitution, the func- 

 tions of our own Association, then our own must necessarily be crippled, 

 and to do any good at all must meet at a different time and a different 

 place. A committee or section, or whatever it ma\' be called, of the gen- 

 eral Association with which we meet would preclude active membership 

 of any but those who come within the constitution of that body. Our 

 Canadian friends, and many others who have identified themselves 

 with applied entomology and do not belong to any of our State or Gov- 

 ernment institutions, would be debarred from active representation, 

 however liberal the Association may have been in inviting such to par- 

 ticipate, without power to vote, in its deliberations. Our own Associa- 



