t 



INSECTS IN RELATION TO MAN 423 



tain locust, chinch bug, Hessian fly, San Jose scale andbthers, the State 

 or Experiment Station entomologist has his hands full in any State of 

 agricultural importance; in fact, can scarcely discharge his duties prop- 

 erly without the aid of a corps of competent assistants. 



This chapter would be incomplete without some mention of the 

 progress of economic entomology in this country, especially since 

 America is pre-eminently the home of the science. The history of the 

 science is largely the history of the State and Government entomologists, 

 for the following account of whose work we are indebted chiefly to the 

 writings of Dr. Howard, to which the reader is referred for additional 

 details as well as for a comprehensive review of the status of economic 

 entomology in foreign countries. 



Massachusetts. Dr. Thaddeus W. Harris, though preceded as a 

 writer upon economic entomology by William D. Peck, was our pioneer 

 official entomologist official simply in the sense that his classic volume 

 was prepared and published at the expense of the state of Massachu- 

 setts, first (1841) as a " Report" and later as a " Treatise." The 

 splendid Flint edition (1862), entitled "A Treatise on Some of the 

 Insects Injurious to Vegetation," is still "the vade mecum of the working 

 entomologist who resides in the northeastern section of the country." 



Dr. Alpheus S. Packard gave the state three short but useful reports 

 from 1871 to 1873. 



As entomologist to the Hatch Experiment Station of the Massachu- 

 setts Agricultural College, Prof. Charles H. Fernald issued important 

 bulletins upon injurious insects, and published in collaboration 

 with Edward H. Forbush a notable volume upon the gipsy moth. 



New York. Dr. Asa Fitch, appointed in 1854 by the New York State 

 Agricultural Society, under the authorization of the legislature, was the 

 first entomologist to be officially commissioned by any state. His 

 fourteen reports (1855 to 1872) embody the results of a large amount of 

 painstaking investigation. 



In 1881 Dr. James A. Lintner became state entomologist of New 

 York. Highly competent for his chosen work, Lintner made every 

 effort to further the cause of economic entomology, and his thirteen 

 reports, accurate, thorough and extremely serviceable, rank among the 

 best. Lintner has had a most able successor in Dr. E. P. Felt, who is 

 continuing the work with exceptional vigor and the most careful regard 

 for the entomological welfare of the state. Felt has published at this 

 writing thirty-eight bulletins (including twenty-one annual reports), 

 besides important papers on forest and shade- tree insects, and has 



