January i6, 1891.] 



SCIENCE. 



31 



the department, whicb it had been my lot to direct, of 

 establisliing sucVi reeling or market centres at San Francisco, 

 New Orleans, and Philadelphia, had proved unsuccessful ; 

 and the promise was made to Congress that two years of ex- 

 perimentation under my immediate direction at Washington 

 would enable a definite decision of the question. Two jears 

 passed, and the appropriation was increased, and continued 

 a third year, for various reasons stated at the time. At the 

 end of the third year I became convinced of the futility of 

 continuing the experiments indicated without protective duty, 

 and so stated in my report. While in Europe, in 1889, I 

 paid particular attention to the question, and visited the 

 Serrell works at the Serrell establishment at Chabeuil, where 

 I found that Mr. Serrell had abandoned his own reeling- 

 machinery, which was stored in the cellar, and had gone 

 back to the iise of the ordinary non-automatic reeling- 

 machines, though employing improved automatic brushes 

 and cleaners of his own invention, which have such advan- 

 tages that they are fast coming into use in France and Italy. 

 I felt moi'e convinced than ever of the futility of continuing 

 the experiments at Washington, except with the protection 

 indicated, especially as any improvement or valuable out- 

 come of such experiments would redound primarily to the 

 benefit of a private corporation, and doubtless benefit other 

 countries more than our own. The hope of improvement, 

 and the attractiveness of the machinery to the average 

 visitor, among other reasons, to which I need not now refer, 

 have caused continuation of the special reeling-work against 

 my advice. From the foregoing you will naturally draw 

 the conclusion that I do not at present favor any time being 

 wasted on the subject at the State stations, since Congress 

 declined to put a duty on "raw" silk, —a striking illus- 

 tration of the inconsistencies of the tariff schedule. 



Legislation. 

 The amount of legislation in different countries that has 

 of late years been deemed necessary or sufficiently impor- 

 tant, in view of injurious insects, is a striking evidence of 

 the increased attention, paid to applied entomology ; and 

 while modern legislation of this kind has been, on the whole, 

 far more intelligent than similar efforts in years gone by, 

 many of the laws passed have nevertheless been unwise, 

 futile, and impracticable, and even unnecessarily oppressive 

 to other interests. The chief danger here is the intervention 

 of politics or political methods. Expert council should 

 guide our legislators, and the steps taken should be thorough 

 in order to be effective. We have had of late years in 

 Germany very good evidence of the excellent results flowing 

 from thorough methods; and the recent legislation in Massa- 

 chusetts against the gypsy-moth (Ocneria dispar), which at 

 one time threatened to become farcical, has fortunately 

 proved more than usually successful, the commission ap- 

 pointed to deal with the subject having worked with energy, 

 and followed competent advice. 



Publication. 

 On the question of publication of the results of our labors, 

 it is perhaps premature to dwell at length. Each of the ex- 

 periment stations is publishing its own bulletins and reports 

 quite independently of the others ; but after a uniform plan 

 recommended by the association with which we meet here, 

 and with few exceptions that have come to my notice, 

 another important recommendation of the same association 

 — that these publications shall be void of all personal mat- 

 ter — has been kept in mind. The National Bureau of Ex- 

 periment Stations at Washington is doing what it can with 



the means at command to further the general work by issu- 

 ing the experiment-station record, devoted chiefly to digests 

 of the State station bulletins. There is a serious question in 

 my mind as to the utility of State digests by the national 

 department, of results already published extensively by the 

 different States, and distributed under government frank to 

 all similar institutions and to whomsoever is interested 

 enough to ask for them. Such digests may or may not be 

 intelligently made, and, even under the most favorable cir- 

 cumstances, will hardly serve any other purpose than help- 

 ing to the reference to the original articles ; and this could 

 undoubtedly be done more satisfactorily to the stations, and 

 to the people at large, by general and classified indexes to 

 all the State docunaents, made as full as possible, and issued 

 at stated intervals. Only a small proportion of the bulletins 

 have been so far noticed by digest in this record, witli no 

 particular rule, so far as I can see, in the selection. This is, 

 perhaps, inevitable under present arrangements. Complete 

 and satisfactory digests of all, if intelligent and critical, 

 imply a far greater force than is at present at Professor 

 Atwater's command, and it is doubtful whether, even with 

 increased facilities, they could be satisfactorily made with- 

 out the assistance of the different specialists. 



Under these circumstances, it would seem wiser to devote 

 all the energies of the bureau to digests of the similar lit- 

 erature of other countries, which would be of immense ad- 

 vantage to our people and to the different station workers. 

 Judging from the recommendations and resolutions of the 

 general association, this is the view very generally held ; 

 but except in chemistry, and special industries like that of 

 beet-sugar, very little of that kind of work has yet been at- 

 tempted. 



What is true of the station publications in general is 

 equally true of special publications. As entomologist of the 

 department, I have been urged to bring together at stated in- 

 tervals digests of the entomological publications of the dif- 

 ferent stations. Such digests, to be of any value, however, 

 should also be critical ; but it is, at best, a thankless task for 

 any one to be critic or censor even of that which needs 

 correction or criticism, and also difficult to maintain the 

 judicial and impersonal attitude which should characterize 

 official expression, in face of the severe criticism that some 

 publications provoke. Moreover, to do this work intelligently 

 would require increase of the divisional force, wliich at pres- 

 ent is more advantageously employed, for, as already in- 

 timated, I should have great doubts of the utility of these 

 digests. 



I believe, however, that the division should strive for such 

 increase of means as would justify the periodic publication, 

 either independently or as a part of the department record, 

 of general and classified indexes to the entomological matter 

 of the station bulletins, and should work more and more 

 toward giving results from other parts of the world. This 

 could perhaps best be done by titles of subject and of author, 

 so spaced (and printed on stout paper) that they could be 

 cut and used in the ordinary card catalogue. The recipient 

 could cut and systematically place the titles as fast as re- 

 ceived. 



As to the character of the matter of the entomological 

 bulletins, it will inevitably be influenced by the needs and 

 demands of the people of the respective States, and, while 

 originality should be kept in mind, there must needs be in 

 the earlier years of the work much re-statement of what is 

 already well known. That some results have been pub- 

 lished of work which reflects no particular credit upon our 



