772 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 831 



the Yarious western states and territories 

 asked congress for a commission of five 

 experts and an appropriation of twenty- 

 five thousand dollars, but congress scaled 

 this down to three experts and an appro- 

 priation of eighteen thousand dollars. 

 Within very recent years, however, con- 

 gress has appropriated almost without dis- 

 cussion such large sums as two hundred 

 and fifty thousand dollars for the investi- 

 gation of the cotton boll weevil and three 

 hundred thousand dollars for the investi- 

 gation of the gipsy moth and the brown- 

 tail moth, while New Jersey has spent more 

 than a hundred thousand dollars on the 

 mosquito work, and Massachusetts alone 

 more than a million on the gipsy moth, the 

 latter sum covering the work of a number 

 of years. It is safe, in fact, to estimate 

 that there are in the neighborhood of five 

 hundred scientifically trained entomologists 

 holding official positions in this country at 

 the present time, as against five thirty- 

 seven years ago. 



That with our rapidly increasing popula- 

 tion 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 in- 

 crease. The first great impetus came with 

 the organization 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 entomologists were ap- 

 pointed. It was difficult to find the right 

 men, but Fernald, Comstock and A. J. 

 Cook had been lecturing to slowly increas- 

 ing 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 in- 

 crease in interest in entomology, and year 

 after year their graduates and those of 

 other teachers who had been added to their 

 number have rapidly increased the niunber 

 of working entomologists and of those pos- 

 sessing a trained interest in the study. 



Shortly after these newly appointed ex- 

 periment 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 towards 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 overestimated. 

 This spread alone is responsible probably 

 for more legislation in this country and in 

 other eoiintries than all the other features 

 of entomology combined. The San Jose 

 scale literature published in the last sixteen 

 years covers hundreds of thousands of 

 pages, and hundreds of thousands of dol- 

 lars have been lost through the work of the 

 insect. But through the operation of new 

 state laws many additional entomologists 

 have been employed, and through their 

 work millions of dollars have been saved. 



The discovery in 1894 by Smith, Kil- 



