﻿136 EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT 



them? What do they know or care about entomology, fancying, as 

 most of them do, that entomologists busy themselves exclusively in 

 collecting the greatest possible number of beautiful butterflies? Talk 

 to them of science, and they smile in your face. They are so perpet- 

 ually teased and tormented by scientific charlatans — wolves in sheep's 

 clothing — lobbying for legislative assistance for all kinds of ridiculous 

 impossibilities, that they have come to believe firmly that science is 

 only another word for humbug and imposture." 



I am confident that if one-hundreth part of the pecuniary dam- 

 age that is annually inflicted by insects upon the farmers were in- 

 flicted, instead, upon the merchants or manufacturers, Congress would 

 long since have given the matter most careful consideration. 



What could one man, employed for one year, accomplish where 

 the field is so wide? Our cotton growers have lost hundreds of mil- 

 lions of dollars through the Cotton Worm. Yet to our shame, be it 

 said, no one knows positively, to-day, how the insect passes the Win- 

 ter, for the simple reason that no extended observations have been 

 made on the subject. One man's time for at least a year, with liberal 

 assistance, would be required to thoroughly investigate this species, 

 to say nothing of the others. 



If there is to be National legislation in this line, let it be wise 

 and worthy of the occasion, or let us have none at all. Let us not 

 court failure and disappointment by weakening the power of the com- 

 mission for good, and thus adding one more to the list of similar com- 

 missions that have failed and thus brought discredit on the country 

 and on science. 



Both the Ingalls and the Harvey bills were preferable to the 

 amended one; but even the single commissioner was denied, and 

 after debating the amended bill, as reported by the committee for 

 one whole morning, (and those who care to follow the debate in the 

 Congressional Record for March 7, will find rich reading,) the bill was 

 passed in the following form : 



Be it enacted by the Sznate and House of Representatioes of the United States of 

 America in Congress assembled. That it shall be the duty of the Commissioner of Agri- 

 culture to investigate and gather information relative to those insects which are most 

 destructive to the crops of planters and farmers, and especially of the Kocky Mountain 

 locust, the chinch-bug, the army-worm, the cotton worm, the tobacco-worm, the Hes- 

 sian fly, potato-bug, and other insects injurious to the great staples, wheat, corn and 

 cotton, in order to devise successful methods for the destruction of such insects; and 

 to make public from time to time such information and such practical instructions for 

 the suppression of the different insects referred to. 



And thus the debate ended in the fizzle of resolving that it shall 

 be the duty of the Commissioner of Agriculture to perform certain 

 work, which people outside the Senate have been in the habit of sup- 



