18 ASSOCIATION OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGISTS. 



INSECTS AND PLANT DISEASES. 



In the study of the relations of insects with the diseases of plants 

 we have never shown the interest that this subject deserves from its 

 very great importance. That insects convey such diseases as pear 

 blight is now very well established, but I have been impressed more 

 than once in the course of a study of the habits of an insect with the 

 fact that their injuries were not by any means limited to the direct 

 destruction of the tissues of. plants. Dr. Erwin F. Smith, of the 

 Department of Agriculture, has called attention to the inoculation of 

 plants of the cucumber family with the virus of a blight carried in 

 the mouth-parts of insects. Undoubtedly the spores of the rots of 

 fruits and of the canker of bark are often conveyed by insects in this 

 manner, and in the case of peaches and some varieties of plums this 

 has seemed to me to be the chief source of infection. All of these 

 matters need more study and experiment. They constitute one of 

 the most inviting fields known to me for the labors of the entomolo- 

 gist who has some knowledge of bacteriological technique. 



INSECTS AND FLOWERS. 



Another field for investigation, lying in the border land between 

 entomology and botany, has received but little attention in this 

 country and should soon be occupied by our economic entomologists. 

 Excepting the painstaking work done by Charles Robertson, ac- 

 counts of which have appeared in botanical journals, and that of the 

 late C. V. Riley on the fertilization of Yucca flamentoscu we have 

 little in the way of published observations on the relations of insects 

 and flowers. The subject is one of vast importance from the stand- 

 point of agriculture, and in this period of activity in all problems 

 having to do with heredity and breeding entomologists should more 

 generally take an interest in the subject and throw upon it what light 

 is to be derived by investigations made from the entomological point 

 of view. We have left this matter thus far too largely to botanists, 

 and while they have done well with it. no doubt with our different 

 training and knowledge we could, with a little study, add many facts 

 which escape their observation. Riley's work on the pollination of 

 Yucca is but an earnest of the interesting things that fresh study in 

 this field would very probably bring to light. 



APICULTURE. 



In the honey bee we have an insect more completely at our disposal 

 than any other. It is a domestic animal, and was such even in the 

 d^ys of ancient Greece. We have no insect that has been given so 

 much care, thought, and observation, and we have learned the facts 



