ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 85 



ous to-day than ever before, and consequently, we must fight 

 them more vigorously than ever if we expect to be rid of the 

 damage which they cause. We hear a great deal of complaint 

 about them on ever}' hand, and yet we might as well recognize 

 the fact that they are with us, and we cannot expect to drive 

 them out without a lot of hard work against them. It may be 

 interesting to some of you if I should, at this point, say some- 

 thing of the development of the remedies which are used now 

 in fighting insect pests. Previous to 1829 tobacco water was 

 known as an insecticide. 



I think it was in 1840 that the Massachusetts Horticultural 

 Society offered a prize of $120 for the cheapest and most effec- 

 tive method of destroying the rose beetle. Two years later 

 this sum of money was awarded to a Massachusetts gentleman 

 for a remedy which had been tried by the committee and found 

 to work fairly well. This remedy consisted of whale-oil soap, 

 two pounds to fifteen gallons of water. It was not until about 

 1868, however, that Paris green was used as an insecticide. 

 Its use was developed more especially in connection with the 

 Colorado potato beetle, which formerly lived in the Rocky 

 Mountains and began to work eastward soon after the potato 

 crop was first cultivated in that region. This is a field crop, 

 and was cultivated of course for a long time in the eastern 

 states. As the great West became settled, potato fields were 

 planted each year further and further westward, until they 

 finally reached the Rocky Mountains, and the potato beetle, 

 which fed on the wild plants there, began to feed upon the 

 cultivated ones. About 1874 it reached the Atlantic coast. 

 Various materials were tried, but after some experimentation it 

 was found necessary to use insecticides which were more power- 

 ful than any that had been used previously and it was found 

 that Paris green would answer the purpose very well. From 

 the use of this poison at that time many of our modern methods 

 of fighting insects have sprung. It was in 1878 that Paris 

 green was first used as a remedy against the canker worm, 

 and as its success was shown, it was then used for other insects. 

 One man in New York State observed that the trees which 

 had been sprayed were freer from the codlin moth than other 

 trees which were unsprayed, and so it has gradually come about 

 that at the present time no grower expects to obtain a crop of 



