﻿OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 137 



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posing to be his duty without any such senatorial instructions; but 

 which duty the present incumbent has failed to perform either from 

 inability or lack of means; and which there is no reason to believe he 

 will any better perform in the future. Let the people of the West re- 

 member that this brilliant result on the part of a body which can vote 

 four hundred thousand dollars to protect Goverment clothing from 

 mildew and moths (there was a job in it) but which cannot vote 

 twenty thousand for the protection of our crops, was brought about 

 by the persistent efforts of Senator Logan, who pretends to represent 

 the greatest agricultural State in the Union ! Other nations have 

 found it necessary to appoint commissions for the injurious insects 

 of national consequence, and the day will doubtless come when our 

 Government will feel the imperative necessity of doing likewise. 



To insure good results to the country, a national entomological 

 commission should consist of at least three persons; it should have 

 at least five years in which to perform its labors; it should have lib- 

 eral support, and last, and most important of all, it should be com- 

 posed of competent and experienced men — men who can combine 

 practical experience with scientific accuracy. The services of such 

 can only be insured by decent salaries, and their appointment guar- 

 anteed by some such combined selective power as that proposed in 

 Senator Ingalls's bill. Whether or not the subject will be again taken 

 up by the present Congress it is impossible to tell ; but I candidly con- 

 fess that I have little faith that it will receive the serious consideration 

 at Washington that it deserves. Congress is too busy in exposing cor- 

 ruption and peculation to pay much attention to the wants of our 

 insect-cursed farmers. If the annual sum asked for in Senator Ingalls's 

 bill were to maintain some useless diplomatic service in some third- 

 rate foreign land, there would be some chance of getting it; but as it 

 is for the performance of important work that is to redound to the ma- 

 terial benefit of the country for all future time, and for the promotion 

 of our most important industry, why, I presume, it will not be granted. 

 But while there seems to be little chance at present of getting any 

 national legislation on this locust matter, the wisdom of State legis- 

 lation has become obvious in some of the States. Wise laws for the 

 repression of noxious insects can only be enacted where legal and 

 scientific knowledge are combined in the framers of the laws ; and it 

 too often happens that legislative bodies show lack of the requisite 

 knowledge of the latter kind. We had an illustration of this last 

 year in the laws passed by several European nations prohibiting traffic 

 in American potatoes, with a view of preventing the introduction of 

 the Colorado Potato-beetle ; whereas, as has been abundantly shown 



