102 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [Mar., 'll 



That with our rapidly increasing population a certain part 

 of this growth should have occurred would have been quite 

 to be expected, yet no such growth has occurred elsewhere, 

 and we must search for other explanation than the one of 

 normal increase. The first great impetus came with the organ- 

 ization of the state agricultural experiment stations in the 

 spring of 1888 under the act of congress known as the Hatch 

 act. In a short time twenty-eight experiment station ento- 

 mologists were appointed. It was difficult to find the right 

 men, but Fernald, Comstock and A. J. Cook had been lectur- 

 ing to slowly increasing numbers of students, and the places 

 were gradually filled and nearly all of them well filled. Most 

 of the appointees found that they had to do much teaching 

 work,*'and they had to build up libraries and collections, so 

 that there was little time for research work ; but there were 

 twenty-eight teachers thrown into the field, for the most part 

 young and enthusiastic men, and through their efforts began 

 a sudden increase in interest in entomolog}', and year after 

 year their graduates and those of other teachers who had been 

 added to their number have rapidly increased the number of 

 working entomologists and of those possessing a trained in- 

 terest in the study. 



Shortly after these newly appointed experiment station 

 workers took their places and began their labors, the gipsy 

 moth was discovered in New England. It is due to Mrs. 

 Fernald's accurate knowledge of the Lepidoptera that this 

 insect was identified with the destructive European pest as 

 early as it was ; and this determination at once made it evident 

 that strenuous efforts must be made to check the spread of the 

 species. The rapid increase of this pest and the remarkable 

 work carried on in the state of Massachusetts during the next 

 ten years attracted the minds of the people of the country to- 

 wards economic entomology as almost never before. 



A few years later the San Jose scale was discovered in the 

 eastern United States. The tremendous effect of the spread 

 of this most injurious species upon the popular estimation of 

 the value of entomological knowledge can hardly be overesti- 



