PREFACE 



To the Members of the Missouri State Board of Agriculture ': 



Gentlemen: I herewith submit for publication, my Third Annual 

 Report on the Noxious, Beneficial and other Insects of the State of 

 Missouri. 



No particular action seems to have followed the suggestions 

 thrown out in my last year's preface, as to the procuring of a better 

 quality of paper and ink for these Reports. The impressions of the 

 cuts which illustrate the text, are consequently quite inferior in my 

 second Report, and fail to do justice to the engravings. 



As will be seen from the following pages, many important discov- 

 eries in Economic Entomology have been made during the year, and 

 some few insects have been very abundant. On the whole, however, 

 we have enjoyed more than the usual immunity from insect depreda- 

 tions throughout the State. Complaints have been numerous, and 

 articles giving extravagant accounts of the increase of noxious in- 

 sects are continually appearing in our agricultural papers. But 

 while some insects are on the increase, others are on the decrease, 

 and the cause for alarm is in a great measure imaginary. More is now 

 said and written about insects in the industrial journals of the State 

 than formerly, because, through the agency of these Reports, the peo- 

 ple have had their eyes opened to the importance of the subject; and 

 the impression that insects generally are on the increase must be, in 

 a great measure, attributed to this fact rather than to any real in- 

 crease that has occurred. 



The American Entomologist, i»i the columns of which some of 

 the observations contained in this Report have alread} 7 appeared, was 

 continued during the year, and a botanical department, edited by 

 Dr. George Vasey, of Normal, Illinois, was added to it. The charge 

 of such a journal, together with my State duties, kept me too much 

 confined, and for these and other reasons given, the magazine has been 

 suspended during the coming year, 1871. 



This suspension will enable me to spend more time in the field, 

 and as these annual Reports have but a limited circulation, and as 

 very many cultivators of the soil must in consequence, fail to get the 



