38. BULLETIN NO. 64. 



that become prominent as destroyers of farm crops, garden and 

 orchard products and such others as may be injurious to the interests 

 of Montana's citizens. In view of the various other duties laid upon 

 the entomologist, it will be out of the question to prepare an annual 

 report each year, which gives definite information based on investiga- 

 tions and experiments regarding the various pests that will appear, 

 unless the department receives an increased appropriation sufficient 

 to permit the employment of a well qualified assistant to conduct 

 mvestigations under the direction of the entomologist and to do 

 such routine work as sUch investigations make necessary. 



We feel that the provisions of the law creating the office of State 

 Entomologist were wise ones and that although for a few years there 

 may be no lengthly report published, the benefits derived from the 

 law will be far out of proportion to the small appropriation made in 

 the law. The law requires that the State Entomologist shall go to 

 the scene of the outbreak of each insect pest of prominence and shall 

 investigate the conditions in the field. There is always a tendency 

 in experiment station entomology foj the officer in charge to con- 

 duct most of his work in his home laboratory. His work is neces- 

 sarily technical and requires close application of himself or an assis- 

 tant and it is often difficult to get away to go into the field, and yet 

 without such trips into the field the entomologist cannot know the 

 needs of his state as perfectly as he should. 



It is therefore our intention to keep in touch with the needs of 

 Montana and publish annually a brief report. For the present it will 

 be necessary to confine our investigations largely to such lines of 

 work as have been taken up in accordance with the Adams Act. 



The law creating the office of State Entomologist requires that 

 an annual report shall be made to the Governor which shall be pub- 

 lished by the Experiment Station as one of its regular bulletins and 

 shall contain a report of his work and expenditures. The first 

 three reports were made to contain practically the full results of the 

 entomologists work so far as completed. In view of the fact that 

 the Federal Government furnishes the salary of the entomologist 

 and provides the funds for the equipment and assistance, we feel 

 that the briefer reports contemplated are sufficient to both satisfy 

 the requirements of the state law and fairly represent the amount 

 of appropriation the law carries. For the ultimate best results, 

 we feel that the present course is a wise one. 



