4 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF 



cutting down such trees as have been injured from whatsoever cause, 

 so that they shall not remain from year to year as a hiding place for 

 noxious insects, or as a hot-bed for equally injurious funguses. 



The peach crop failed pretty generally on account of the great 

 increase of the Plum Curculio, and the opinion has been advanced 

 and extensively published, that this insect will cause a failure of that 

 crop in certain districts for very many years to come. Let the wise 

 place no confidence in such predictions, for the predictors can have 

 but a vague conception of the grand scheme of Nature, and of the 

 laws which govern both animal and vegetable life. For many rea- 

 sons unnecessary to mention, the prospect for a good crop the year 

 succeeding an entire failure, is greater than at any other period — at 

 least so far as insects are concerned. Because an insect is numerous 

 and destructive one year, therefore it will be even more so the next, 

 is apparently plausible but very fallacious reasoning. Every one of 

 the thousands of species which are known to exist, multiplies at a 

 sufficient rate to entirely cover our globe, in a comparatively short 

 time, if nothing hindered ; and the struggle and warfare necessary to 

 enable all the different species to exist and hold their own, causes a 

 constant fluctuation in the relative proportion of each. We have an 

 illustration of this in the case of the Colorado Potato Beetle; for in 

 those districts where it had caused so much alarm in 1866 and 1867, its' 

 enemies have so increased that it was comparatively harmless in 

 1868. 



The importance of the study of Entomology has already become 

 apparent to every tiller of the soil, but there is yet a class of citizens 

 who fail to appreciate the laborious efforts of an Entomologist, and can- 

 not conceive how the "study of bugs," as they term it, will redound 

 to the good of a State or community. For the benefit of such, let me 

 say, that in his last annual address the president of our State Horti- 

 cultural Society, estimated the annual loss to our State from insect 

 depredations at sixty million dollars ! Now, allowing this estimate 

 to be twice as great as the facts will warrant, the sum is yet quite 

 enormous. It is not possible by any preventive measures to save 

 ■the whole of this immense sum, but it is perfectly practicable to 

 g ; ave a large percentage of it, and in this assertion I think the follow- 

 ing pages will bear me out. A knowledge of the habits and trans- 

 formations of insects frequently gives the clue to their easy eradica- 

 tion and destruction, and enables the agriculturist and horticulturist 

 to prevent their ravages in the future. It likewise enables them to 

 distinguish between their insect friends and insect enemies, and 

 esuards them against the impositions of the numerous quacks and 

 nostrum-venders, who, with high-sounding words are constantly put- 

 ting forth every energy to sell their vile compositions. Such a 

 knowledge of insects the farmer has not time to acquire, for it is 

 onlv obtained by an immense amount of hard labor in the field and 



