California will be equally effective in New Jersey, nor that the conclu- 

 sions based upon tlie most careful exi)erinieiits made in New York vnn 

 be accepted uu(iuestioned in idalio. To be more specific, Mr. Slinger- 

 land's work on the pear blister-mite is (certainly as conscientious a pro- 

 duction as can be wished for, and the results obtained by his use of the 

 kerosene emulsion are undoubtedly exi)ressions of actual facts; yet 

 Mr. Aldrich in Idaho finds tlicm utterly useless in his locality, and the 

 insects bear witliout discomfort applications which Mi*. Slingerland 

 found fatal in New York. 80 Mr. Howard has published, as the result 

 of carefnl experimentation, that some of tlie washes found most satis- 

 factory on the Pacific Coast for the destruction of scale insects are of 

 no practical use in tlie Atlantic States. .Air. AVebster has frequently 

 joked me ui^on my failure to get satisfactory results with the rose-chafer 

 in New Jersey, which he seems to find no difficulty in managing in 

 Ohio. But the methods used by him are simply useless against the 

 species in the Eastern locality. 



Thf, point I wish to make is, that there are factors not yet understood 

 bj^ us that should make us cautious in ret^oramending too positively or 

 hastily measures based on results reached in localities dift'erent from our 

 own, raid on the other hand should make us very chary in condemning 

 work done by a confrere because.our results do not agree with his. 



The day of testing insecticides is therefore not so nearly over as has 

 been sometimes thought, and we owe it to our constituent, where his 

 results do not agree with our expectations, to test the matter under 

 his conditions before deciding him incompetent; and it does not need 

 the distance between the Atlantic and Pacific to make a difference in 

 condition, Eesults obtained annually bj' dozens of farmers in New 

 Jersey seem absolutely unobtainable by most careful experiments made 

 in New Y'ork; while I have this season proved, nuicli to my dissatis- 

 faction, that the reverse may be equally true, for [ can not secure the 

 results in actual practice with bisulphide of carbon against cabbage 

 maggots which Mr. Slingerland obtained in his experiments. Yet Mr. 

 Sliugerland undoubtedly recorded only what he found, and sooner oi- 

 later the reason for the failure in New Jersey will be discovered. 



Each worker must therefore study his own field nu)st carefully-, and 

 not the least important subject of study is his constituency, the farmer, 

 for whose benefit he works. T need not tell you, gentlemen, that the 

 old line — 



A roiijiio is a ro<;iu', wlieroxer ho may l)o — 



cannot be applied to the farmer. He is difierent in almost every s-^c 

 tion and State — even within the limits of a county in some cases — and 

 what will appeal to one tyi)e in one locality may be ridiculed as non- 

 sense by another not IM) miles away. There seem to be sonu^ charac 

 teristics, however, comnmn to the class — among them a marked sus- 

 picion as to the good faith of any(uu' who i>retends to do something 

 for him for nothing, and a disinclination to believe that he can learn 



