124 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



scientific terms — since some of these names 

 may cover hundreds, or even thousands of 

 distinct species. Even in such classes as 

 quadrupeds and birds the systematic com- 

 mon names are becoming almost as com- 

 plicated as their scientific names, compar- 

 atively limited as their numbers are. 

 Again, take the class which includes the 

 marine and fresh water shells, hundreds of 

 which, to a common observer, look alike 

 and yet are specifically different, and con- 

 template the difficulty of giving them all 

 common names. * * * It is all folly 

 to assume that the reasonably intelligent 

 among the human family can not become 

 educated up to a general comprehension of 

 scientific literature, for scientific technol- 

 ogy is not peculiar to natural history alone. 

 There is scarcely a mechanical, ])rofessional 

 or commercial occupation that has not its 

 peculiar technology. Place in the hands 

 of a man of acknowledged intelligence, on 

 other subjects, a list of the different gar- 

 ments, and the fabrics which compose 

 them, which enter into a lady's toilet of 

 the present day, and see how much he will 

 understand about the names, qualities and 

 materials; and yet a little miss, scarcely in 

 her teens, may know all about them, and 

 may be able to repeat their names as glibly 

 as her A B Cs ; and a boy ten or a dozen 

 years old, may be able to lay his hand im- 

 mediately upon a thousand articles in a 

 drug store, all of which bear Latin names. 

 Why, the very cut-throats, burglars, pick- 

 pockets, pugilists and the habitues of the 

 cocki)it have a sort of flash technology 

 that is perfectly intelligible to them, but 

 " all Greek " to the honest and unsophisti- 

 cated. It seems impossible that all the brain 

 should have been monopolized by these 

 and others to whom we have alluded, and 

 none accorded to farmers, gardeners, and 

 fruit-growers. We must confess that, per- 

 sonally, we have often wished that scienti- 

 fic descriptions had been couched in some- 

 what plainer language, but at the same time 

 we are compelled to acknowledge its im- 

 practicability. We never feel quite sure 

 that we perfectly understand what the ani- 

 mal or plant is that an author is describing 



who entirely discards or ignores scientific 

 nomenclature. We feel like a mariner at 

 sea without a compass ; although he may 

 not fully understand the minute details of 

 the instrument, yet so far as he i/ofs under- 

 stand, it is to him an infallible guide. We 

 must educate ourselves up to an intelligent 

 standard on this subject as well as on 

 others, and meet the efforts that are being 

 made to popularize science, at least half 

 way, and to do this there needs to be pro- 

 vision made for it in our systems of public 

 instruction. The curriculum of the school 

 need not be lumbered unnecessarily with 

 scientific technology, but should have suffici^B 

 ent to guide the student in any occupation 

 he may afterward select as his business of 

 life. Under any circumstances all element- 

 ary education is but rudimental, and only 

 becomes useful when it is reduced to 

 practice, and especially so when it be- 

 comes a part and parcel of our daily 

 calling, and is interwoven with our pecu- 

 niary interests. The name, the nature, the 

 habits and the forms of the animals exist- 

 ing in the districts we have chosen for our 

 inheritance, become, as it were, a part of 

 our stock in trade, and a knowledge of 

 them is as essential to the successful 

 farmer as a knowledge of composts and 

 fertilizer.!, or of agricultural implements 

 and how to use them. And the longer we 

 live, the more we improve and cultivate 

 the land, the more attention will have to 

 be paid to the incidental checks and draw- 

 backs to agricultural progress. — -Lancaster 



Farmer. 



•*• — ♦ 



Extensive destruction of the Cot- 

 ton Worm. — The Hon. J. Floyd King of 

 Louisiana, in ordering a number of cojjies 

 of our Bulletin on the Cotton Worm, re- 

 marks : 



I myself can mention an instance of administer- 

 ing poison to .the Cotton Worm on over 3,000 

 acres of land in one year. The application was 

 simply Paris green and water. The year I refer 

 to was 1873, when the worm was most fatal in 

 its ravages throughout the iVIississippi Valley, 

 and I saved my crop when all around me it 

 failed. 



" Three blow-flies will devour the body 

 of a dead horse as quickly as will a lion." — 

 LinncBus. 



