1861.] MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 7 



sented by the honey, the nutgalls, the cochineal, and the silk 

 created annually by the former. Many of the comforts and 

 necessaries of our daily life are dependent upon the labors of 

 this despised insect portion of the earth's population ; nor can it 

 be doubted that increased scientific knowledge of this important 

 branch of zoology will tend to increase, and therefore to cheapen, 

 these insect manufactures, and to discover others of equal value 

 and utility. And, glancing for a moment at the destructive spe- 

 cies, it has already been demonstrated that the loss sustained in 

 certain seasons by our crops from the ravages of insects has been 

 of so serious an amount as to cast a shade for the time over the 

 whole aspect of agricultural and commercial operations. In one 

 Eeport, issued a few years since, the total amount of this loss 

 was estimated at upwards of twenty millions of dollars in the 

 year ! In this view alone, then, the general study of natural his- 

 • tory might save us from an annual loss of many millions ; for it 

 alone can teach us how to discover and drag forth and destroy 

 these insidious and deadly enemies of agriculture, — these plun- 

 derers and destroyers of our very " staff of life." 



It is not very unusual to hear the complaint made, that farming 

 is falling into disrepute and is going out of fashion, — that, now- 

 adays, the sons of our farmers all aspire to enter trade, or com- 

 merce, or the professions ; nor is that complaint by any means 

 groundless. But the grumbling and complaining of " practical 

 old-school men " will not remedy the evil. We live in what is, 

 essentially, an intellectual age, and, in our country more espe- 

 cially, what may be called intellectual ambition exercises an over- 

 powering influence over the minds of our young men. They will 

 not, as a body, be content to plod on in a life of labor, which they 

 are led to believe requires only mechanical and manual labor to 

 command success. They feel the stirring of the intellect within 

 them, and they will seek a fitting field for its exercise. Let them 

 learn that agriculture, even, to be successfully and profitably car- 

 ried on, not only gives free scope for, but imperatively demands, 

 the application of the principles and practice of science ; that 



