AS RELATED TO WEALTH. Ill 



guarding against the injurious. The money value 

 that comes from such a knowledge amounts, in our 

 own country, to millions in a year, and what it might 

 be to the whole world is beyond computation. And 

 this knowledge is every year becoming of more im- 

 portance. We can not, perhaps, select a better ex- 

 ample for the perfect illustration of what I mean 

 than insects. Men, who pride themselves upon their 

 wisdom and common-sense, and pecuniary shrewd- 

 ness, generally regard Entomology as a very ridicu- 

 lous subject ; they have never attended to it, in- 

 deed it would be the last thing they would think of 

 doing. To see a man catching bugs and butterflies 

 is, to them, more senseless than studying frogs and 

 sticklebacks, if possible. Let us, however, stop a 

 moment, and inquire what this busy tribe produce 

 and destroy in a single year. Of their productions, 

 we may mention the silks, the wax, the honey, the 

 lac-gums and dyes, the nut-galls and cochineal. 

 How many millions of dollars, think you, would 

 purchase all these products for a single year? To 

 narrow the question, how many millions would buy 

 those imported into this country, and those produced 



