but they learn how to combat successfully some of the diseases and 

 enemies that prey on our food fishes. America has the distinction 

 of leading the world in the rearing and protection of fish. To show 

 what one state can do in one year it may not be amiss to refer to the 

 report of the New York state fish commission for 1898. In this 

 year the state fish-car made forty-six trips, distributing thirty-five 

 car loads of young fish throughout the state, and fifty carloads of 

 fish were allowed to remain in the hatcheries for the next year's 

 planting. The state expects to restock Lake Ontario with whitefish, 

 and for this purpose hatched twenty million fry in one year. Our 

 fish and game commissions frequently render good service by sug- 

 gesting appropriate legislation and correcting faulty laws. 



And now, to change the subject again, we shall not find in the 

 whole range of animals another class of such power for good and 

 evil as the insects. The time was, not many years ago, when the 

 professional entomologist was dubbed a "bug-hunter" and regarded 

 with undisguised contempt by the "practical" farmer and man of 

 affairs. But the despised bugs kept rolling up accounts against our 

 people and collecting them regularly, annually destroying agricul- 

 tural products valued at $100,000,000 to $300,000,000. Our people 

 set the bug hunter to devising some sort of relief from the insect 

 plague, and the science of economic entomology was brought from 

 Europe to America. Like many other things introduced from the 

 old world, it has developed beyond all previous bounds and now 

 America leads the world, without a rival in the science of applied 

 entomology. The present indictment against insects consists of 

 five counts and is well enough expressed in the words that I shall 

 quote from Dr. Howard, the United States Entomologist. 



"Insects are injurious: 



1. As destroyers of crops and other valuable plant life. 



2. As destroyers of stored foods, dwellings, clothes, books, etc. 



3. As injuring live stock and other useful animals. 4. As annoy- 

 ing man. 5. As carriers of disease." 



Another quotation shows the possibilities of these pests when 

 acting in the first named role : 



"At the present time almost every cultivated crop has not 

 only its thousands upon thousands of individual insect enemies, 

 but it is affected by scores and even hundreds of species. A mere 



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