| 
7 
subject as giving opportunity to introduce and speculate upon some 
ideas which interest me for the moment, although they may not, per- 
haps, be altogether novel. 
To explain my intention in advance, I shall make a plea, as a solution 
of the insect problem, for the laisser-faire policy in such large matters 
or continental or world concerns as seem to me to be beyond practi- 
cable reach by human agencies, and I shall counsel active efforts at con- 
trol and prevention in such smaller and more local fields as promise 
adequate results. In other words, I shall attempt to separate the work 
in applied entomology that is practicable and profitable from work that 
is impracticable and unprofitable, and so benefit the former by prevent- 
ing needless waste of effort. 
If one could view the earth from a sufficient distance or at an eleva- 
tion, as the bird sees it flying in mid-air, a condition of perfect nature 
would be impressed. The vegetation covering valleys and hills would 
seem unbroken, and all the slight abnormalities which are visible on 
close inspection would disappear. Only the stable conditions of a bal- 
anced nature would be visible. The stability, or the balance between 
animal and: plant life, is evidenced by the very existence of both ani- 
mals and plants, and in undisturbed nature a healthful condition of 
both plants and animals is the common and notable rule. One sees 
forests of sturdy, giant trees which have stood as they stand to-day for 
more than a thousand years. One may drive over hundreds of miles 
of unbroken prairies and not find a single spot without its covering of 
perfect sod. In other words, without multiplying illustration, it is evi- 
dent that, in the broad view, nature is quite capable of taking care 
of herself, and that plants and animals have long existed and will con- 
- tinue so to exist without the efforts of man to protect and save either. 
Much of the damage by insects which we note and herald is unusual 
and isolated. The occurrence of an insect in destructive numbers 
is witnessed, a bulletin or report is distributed, and the information 
thus gained is repeated in other publications for years, perhaps, while, 
in point of fact, the repetition of such injury may be long in coming. 
Even under natural conditions of virgin prairie and forest one occa- 
sionally notes instances of isolated damage. Professor Cockerell has 
ealled my attention to a notable case. The plant Atroplex canescens 
covers the country in unbroken square miles for vast areas in the 
Southwest, and normally presents a healthy, vigorous aspect, free from 
attacks of scale insects. In this area, however, one plant has been 
discovered literally covered with a scale insect, Hriococcus neglectus. 
Continuing the same idea, anyone who has made an effort to collect 
the long list of injurious insects which figure in our reports as attack- 
ing different cultivated plants knows that it takes many years of care- 
ful search to collect anywhere near a complete series, and that instances 
of special damage by most of the hundreds of injurious species, so called, 
are of very rare occurrence. 
