332 THE DEBT OF THE WORLD TO PURE SCIENCE. 



localities and to stock iiew ones, is but the outgrowth of closet studies 

 which have shown how to utilize nature's superabundant supply. 



The entomologist has always been an interesting phenomenon to a 

 large part of our population. Insects of beauty are attractive, those 

 of large size are curious, while many of the minuter forms are efScient 

 in gaining attention. But that men should devote their lives to the 

 study of the unattractive forms is to many a riddle. Yet entomology 

 yields to no branch of science in the Importance of its economic bear- 

 ings. The study of the life habits of insects, their development, their 

 food, their enemies, a study involving such minute detail as to shut 

 men oft" from many of the pleasures of life and to convert them into 

 typical students, has come to be so fraught with relations to the public 

 weal that the State entomologist's mail has more anxious letters than 

 that of any other offlcer. 



Insects are no longer regarded as visitations from an angry deity, to 

 be borne in silence and with penitential awe. The intimate study of 

 individual groups has taught in many cases how to antagonize them. 

 The scab threatened to destroy orange- culture in California; the Colo- 

 rado beetle seemed likely to ruin one of our important food crops; 

 minute aphides terrified raisers of fruit and cane in the Sandwich 

 Islands. But the scab is no longer a frightful burden in California; 

 the potato bug is now only an annoyance, and the introduction of lady 

 birds swept aphides from the Sandwich Islands. The gypsy motb, 

 believed for more than a hundred years to be a special judgment, is no 

 longer thought of as more than a very expensive nuisance. The cur- 

 culio, the locust, the weevil, the chinch bug, and others have been 

 subjected to detailed investigation. In almost all cases methods have 

 been devised whereby the ravages have been diminished. Even the 

 borers, which endangered some of the most important timber species, 

 are now understood, and the possibility of their extermination has been 

 changed into i^robability. 



Having begun with the " infinitely great ," we may close this sum- 

 mary with a reference to the "infinitely small." The study offer- 

 mentation i)rocesses was attractive to chemists and naturalists, each 

 claiming ownership of the agencies. Pasteur, with a patience almost 

 incredible, revised the work of his jiredecessors and supplemented it 

 with original investigations, proving that a very great part of the 

 changes in organic substances exposed to the atmosjDhere are due pri- 

 marily to the influence of low animals or plants, whose germs exist in 

 the atmosphere. 



One may doubt whether Pasteur had any conception of the possibili- 

 ties hidden in his determination of the matters at issue. The canning 

 of meats and vegetables is no longer attended with uncertainty, and 

 scurvy is no longer the bane of explorers; pork, which has supplied 

 material for the building of railroads, the digging of canals, the con- 

 struction of ships, can be eaten without fear. Flavorless butter can be 



