192 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 



which was the first country to begin to study insects in 

 a really competent way from the economic point of view. 

 This action on the part of our own country is not in the 

 least surprising, since as agriculture spread intensively 

 over its hitherto uncultivated territory and the so- 

 called balance of nature was upset in a rapid and most 

 imperative manner, many native species took readily to 

 the new food planted for them in enormous fields and 

 multiplied to an incredible extent. 



And in this development, with the bringing over of 

 products of different kinds, including plants from the 

 old countries, their insect enemies were brought with 

 them, and finding themselves in a region where the 

 summers or breeding seasons were longer arid where the 

 cultivation was upon a tremendous scale, the insects 

 took cheerfully to the new environment and multiplied 

 to an extent which had not been possible in the small 

 fields and shorter summers of Europe. 



Beginning in a small way and really not until after 

 the completion of the Civil War, the good results 

 reached by the labours of a few entomologists, notably 

 Walsh and Le Baron in Illinois and Riley in Missouri, 

 gained public attention. With the establishment of 

 the state agricultural experiment stations in the late 

 'eighties, activity in the work against insects was multi- 

 plied in this country. From that time to the present 

 the increases in the state and government appropria- 

 tions have been rapid. Capable young men have 

 studied in the universities and colleges of agriculture in 

 increasing numbers until at the present time the Bureau 

 of Entomology of the Department of Agriculture at 



