No. 4.] SPECIAL MEETINGS. 15 



we find it. Allusion has been made to the estimate I made 

 several years ago about the time and amount of money 

 required to exterminate the moth. For two years past we 

 have received the sum indicated in that estimate, lacking 

 $10,000. Such substantial progress has been made that it 

 seems to confirm the opinion that I have expressed. So 

 strongly does it seem to confirm that, that I feel like pre- 

 senting it again, — that, if the Legislature will appropriate 

 the money for the time indicated, it will bring about the 

 desired result, if managed as it has been by your committee 

 in the past. I made the estimate after a careful study of 

 the territory and of the work for a number of years, and 

 of the insect, and have asked for the opinion of another 

 man, Dr. L. O. Howard, who has been referred to. I 

 wrote him last winter, during the session of the Legislature, 

 to find out what he thought of that estimate. He wrote me 

 in reply a letter which has not been published, and which I 

 think will appear in my report. I was very glad to have an 

 outside man, a man who stands as high in entomology as be 

 does, and who has no personal interest in the matter other 

 than the wish that extermination might be accomplished, 

 give that opinion, agreeing with mine. Dr. Howard, as 

 many of you well know, has been sent here from year to 

 year by the general government to inspect this work. No 

 entomologist has spent so much time in the territory, going 

 over the entire work, as Dr. Howard has ; and he has given 

 his opinion from year to year, first in the form of a bulletin 

 published by the Department of Agriculture at Washington, 

 and this fall he visited the work, and has written me in 

 reply to my question as to his impressions of the work this 

 fall. We have in these letters the opinion of the man who 

 stands highest in economic entomology in this country, and 

 when we say that, we can say of the whole world. 



There is nothing touches a man any more closely than 

 dollars and cents. The question comes in here. Will it pay? 

 How much will it cost a farmer in the extreme western part 

 of the State, who is least of all likely to be afiected by the 

 moth, it will be so long before it reaches him? An appro- 

 priation of $200,000 is less than J^ of a mill on a dollar. 

 If a man is taxed for $5,000 worth of property, his portion 



