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dry out and kill the grass roots, thus starving the very young worms? 
The plan of breaking the ground very late in spring and planting the 
crop immediately I find often fails of protection. 
In conclusion, permit me to direct attention to the fact that the field 
of the economic entomologist is but poorly defined. To work out the 
life-history of a species and study its relations to other forms of life, 
learn what substances will destroy it, determine what course of 
procedure is calculated to prevent its breeding, would appear to con- 
stitute our true field of labor, but we are expected, by some sort of magi- 
cal power, to transform ourselves into carpenters, mechanics, or civil 
engineers, and devise machines, methods, and all the details of appli- 
cation in a manner to fit the current notions of agriculturists. 
Now, it seems to me that this is not necessarily all applied entomology. 
It belongs, it appears to me, equally as much to the science of applied 
agriculture, and I am in favor of giving the farmer the opportunity of 
putting his own shoulder to the wheel and exercising some of his own 
ingenuity to help himself. Outbreaks of injurious insects, like the 
diseases of the human system, are due to certain foregoing causes over 
which the entomologist has no control whatever, but when the trouble 
comes we are expected to go out and instantly stop it. You all know 
how impossible this is, and yet how difficult it is to make people under- 
stand the impossibility of it. I think that at present we are doing our 
whole duty and even more. 
I congratulate the members of this association on the progress we 
aremaking. Nonation on earth is orever has made such rapid advances. 
We make some mistakes it is true; who that does anything at all does 
not? Honest errors are not only no disgrace but may be of value to 
those that follow after. Weare profiting by the mistakes of Harris, 
Fitch, and Walsh; why may not those who shall carry the work forward 
_ after we are gone likewise profit by ours? 
In discussion, Mr. Howard stated that Isosoma tritici occurs out- 
side the limits Mr. Webster assigned it, since it has been found east of 
the Alleghanies. Further discussion was prevented by the necessity 
for adjourning for the boat ride on Lake Mendota. 
Adjourned. 
