﻿IV PREFACE. 



some more western point. The locust invasion of 1874 checked the tide of emigration 

 to Kansas and the further "West, and even turned it back again ; and I have every reason 

 to believe that tlie assurance that Missouri is essentially safe from the devastations of 

 these locusts will have no inconsiderable intluence in staying that immigration within 

 our borders in the future. 



There yet are, and doubtless ever will be, those who — dwelling in cities, and 

 fdmiliiir only with such lectularious insects as cause them bodily inconvenience— have 

 little appreciation of Agriculture or of Entomology in its connection with it; and con- 

 sider the study of " bugs," as they contemptibly call everything that creeps, a fit sub- 

 ject for ridicule. When, however, a single insect, like the Chinch Bug, filches nineteen 

 million dollars, in a single year, from the pockets of the [farmers, and reduces in so 

 much the wealth of the State ; even such persons may be brought to admit that any 

 study having for object the reduction of this immense loss, is not necessarily con- 

 temptible, small as the objects may be with which it deals. Fortunatelj', such persons 

 are becoming fewer and fewer, and the following pages bear witness to the fact that 

 not only in several States in our Union, but in several countries of the " Old World " — 

 iu monarchies, empires and republics alike — the authorities have manifested a remark- 

 able appreciation of economic Entomology. We have, during the year, witnessed Aus- 

 tralia and New Zealand discussing and attempting the introduction from Europe of 

 Aphis parasites to check the alarming increase of those plant pests ; and of bumble 

 bees to enable the farmers to grow their own clover seed. We have seen France in- 

 creasing her premium for a Phylloxera remedy to three hundred thousand francs, and 

 considering plans, for the destruction of the pest, of constructing an irrigation canal 

 to supply 60,000 acres. We have seen Massachusetts memoralizin.f? her Legislature to 

 pass " An act for the destruction of Insects Injurious to Vegetation ; "' while some of 

 our own State Legislatures have been convened in special session to consider means of 

 relieving the sufferers from insect ravages, and several European governments liave, 

 with forethought and wisdom, taken such measures as seemed best to prevent future 

 injury from still other insect pests. 



The fact that the Agriculture of the United States is of equal material importance 

 with all the other interests of the country combined is so often asserted and admitted 

 that it needs no enforcing. This industry not only feeds our own forty million mouths, 

 but supplies the staff of life to millions in foreign lands. Surely, then, it is most im- 

 portant to study and investigate those causes which affect it injuriously and arrest its 

 development, among which injurious insects play such an active part. "When, as last 

 year, the prosperity of Avhole States is jeopardized, and the whole nation suffers most 

 sensibly from these depredators, national measures should be taken to investigate the 

 causes and endeavor to prevent the recurrence of such disasters in the future. I have 

 already referred to the immense loss which the Chinch Bug caused us last year, my 

 estimates being based on returns obtained from farmers from the different counties. 

 Yet, though the sum demonstrably amounts to millions, many of our legislators and 

 some of our journalists would laugh at me were I to ask for an appropriation of five or 

 ten thousand dollars to be expended in experiments which might result in giving us a 

 perfect, or at least a much better remedy for the evil than any now in our possession, 

 and thus save the whole or the larger part of this immense annual loss. Experiments 

 on a sufiiciently thorough and extensive scale can never be undertaken by the few State 

 entomologists now employed, with salaries of two or three thousand dollars, from which 

 they pay their expenses. The means will not justify them and the time of such ofiicers is 



