16 SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT 



may yet unwittingly be the means of bequeathing as great a bane, 

 by sending across the ocean the deadliest enemy of that tuber ! At 

 all events, it behooves our European neighbors to be on the look-out, 

 and to prevent, if possible, any such catastrophe." 



That there will be danger of the insect finding its way to Europe, 

 when once it reaches the Atlantic sea-board, no one can doubt; for 

 the impregnated females will live for weeks, and even months, without 

 food, especially in the spring and autumn, when they also take most 

 readily to wing. Such females, alighting on outward-bound vessels, 

 may easily be given free passage to European ports, and as they will 

 be apt to land without passports, it would be well for the authorities 

 to look out for and prevent such unwelcome incursions. I do not 

 think that there is danger of its being carried across the ocean in 

 any other way, for potato plants^ on which the eggs or larvcne might 

 be carried, are not articles of commercial exchange, and seed potatoes 

 do not, as a rule, harbor the beetles. Let our European friends profit 

 by our sad experience with this insect, and, taking time by the fore- 

 lock, endeavor to prevent its introduction into their potato-fields. 

 This end will best be accomplished through the agricultjiral and hor- 

 ticultural societies, which should make provision for the dissemina- 

 tion of correct information concerning the pest. A small card, giving 

 a colored figure of the beetle, or of all stages of the insect, setting 

 forth the disasters which would follow its introduction, and appealing 

 to the reader to assist in preventing such a calamity, would do good 

 service if posted in the cabins of vessels plying between the two 

 countries, in the warehouses and seed-stores of sea-port towns, and in 

 the meeting rooms of agricultural societies. Some such simple means 

 of familiarizing the public with a possible enemy should be adopted 

 in a country like Ireland, which will, perhaps, be the first to receive 

 the pest, and would suffer most irom it. 



In Prussia the government has adopted a system of agricultural 

 teaching which other countries might well pattern by. Traveling 

 teachers (Wanderlehrer) are appointed, one to each district (Kreis) 

 of twenty or thirty square miles, whose duty it is to call the farmers 

 together in their meeting-houses, lay before them recent important 

 facts in agronomy, institute experiments and implement trials, etc., 

 etc. With such a system the agricultural community can easily be 

 made aware of possible danger, and a large bottleful of our Ten-striped 

 potato-beetles, which a St. Louis friend of mine took over there a 

 year ago, did good service, in that the beetles were distributed, as 

 exhibition specimens, to some of these traveling teachers. 



