Forty-first Beport on the State Museum. 



particular department we are able to report rapid recent progress, and an advance 

 quite beyond that attained in any other country. For this there are two reasons: 



First.— The study is a necessity for us. In no other country are agricultural products 

 subjected to depredations so great as in the United States — a condition resulting from 

 the introduction of a large number of the most injurious insect pests of Europe unat- 

 tended by their natural parasites, and from the multiplication of species and individ- 

 uals through the large areas devoted to special crops, as fruit orchards of five hundred 

 acres, and wheat fields of from twenty-five to thirty-five thousand acres.* 



iSeoond— State and National aid extended to the study. Nearly fifty years ago (in 1837), 

 we find unequivocal recognition of the policy of the State in providing for investigations 

 of this nature, in the instructions by Governor Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, 

 under which that invaluable " Treatise on Insects Injurious to Vegetation," was pre- 

 pared by Dr. Harris. In them we read as follows: "It is presumed to have been a 

 leading object of the Legislature, in authorizing this survey, to promote the 

 agricultural benefit of the Commonwealth, and you will keep carefully in view the 

 economical relations of every subject of your inquiry, * * * the promotion of com- 

 fort and happiness being the great human end of all science." • 



The example of Massachussets was followed by New York in 1853, in directing and 

 providing for the investigations of Dr. Eitch, which were so ably continued through a 

 long term of years. To the high estimation in which these reports were held, and the 

 practical results attending them, we ai-e indebted for the subsequent investigations 

 and reports of the State entomologists of Missouri and of Illinois, which have been of 

 a high order. Eorty State reports on injurious insects have appeard. 



An entomologist (Mr. Glover), had been connected with the Department of Agriculture 

 at Washington since 1863, by whom annual reports were issued, but with his study of 

 insects, many other official duties were connected. In 1878, in recognition of the 

 growing importance of the study, an Entomological Division was established, organized 

 for efScient work with a chief and assistant, and facilities for ample illustration and 

 publication given it. From that time to the present, the work of the Division has con- 

 tinued to increase in magnitude and importance. Appropriations were made for it the 

 last year, inclusive of a special appropriation for the encouragement of silk-culture in 

 the United States, of SIO.OOO. With such means at its command it has been able to make 

 thorough studies of a large number of our insect pests ; special scientific study of cer- 

 tain little known groups (as the Goccidce, G halcididce, etc.); of the insect enemies of the 

 cotton, wheat, hops, and other crops ; and to publish these investigations in an annual 

 report, having an edition of four hundred thousand copies, t and in bulletins and 

 otherwise. 



But the labors of this Division which have particularly contributed to the advance- 

 ment of economic entomology have been those for the discovery of the most efficient 

 materials for use in the destruction of insects, known as insecticides, and in 

 mechanical devices for their application. Of the former, are arsenical poisons, 

 pyrethrum, kerosene emulsions, and bisulphide of carbon; of the latter are various 

 spraying pumps, nozzle-forks for under-spraying the cotton-plant, eddy-chambered 

 nozzles, cyclone nozzle, centrifugal throwers, bamboo-hose extension pipes for spray- 

 ing t&U trees, and other like devices in bewildering nomenclature. At the late World's 

 Centennial Exposition at New Orleans, 117 implements for the application of insecticides, 

 either in powder or spray, were exhibited by the Entomological Division, ranging from 

 the simple powder-bellows for household use, to a complicated field atomizer in which 

 the agitating and distributing machinery is operated by the wheels of the cart upon 

 which it is drawn as it scatters its impalpable spray over nine rows of cotton at 

 once. 



Additional appropriations have also been made by Congress of $10,000 and $15,000 a 

 year, for the investigations by a special commission of the Eocky mountain locust, the 

 cotton-worm, and a few other insects, whose ravages were so extended as to assume a 



* First Report on the Insects of New York, 1882, pp. 8, 11. + At a cost of at least $50,000. 



