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equilibrium in the work of creation as the life of man, and each class, 

 and each individual of each class, dwelt in unmolested security. 



Man seems to have been the first to err, and as a punishment for his 

 error, insects became a pest. See Exodus, viii, 21-24, which reads: 

 "Else, if thou will not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of 

 flies upon thee," etc.; "and the land was corrupted by reason of the 

 swarm of flies." Now, the word in the original, translated "swarms of 

 flies," means a mixed multitude of noisome insects. (See biblical foot- 

 note.) But when Pharaoh repented, "the Lord removed the swarms of 

 flies (insect pests); there remained not one." 



Searching the records of history, I find no reliable mention of insect 

 life worthy of note, till the last half of the last century before Christ; 

 when Virgil, the finest of Latin poets, sang his Bucolico and Georgics, 

 and in general terms dwelt upon the " blights " that fell upon and 

 devastated the flocks, the fields, and the fruits. But no particular 

 insect pest is defined. Then Pliny, the elder, the greatest naturalist of 

 the first century A. D., compiled an exhaustive treatise on natural his- 

 tory, including many other branches of study. He divided insects into 

 two great classes: the coccids (those preyed upon), and the coccinellidse, 

 or predaceous insects, the true ladybirds of to-day. He did not describe 

 the former as injurious or as pests. Pursuing our investigations, we are 

 arrested by the works of Linnasus, the naturalist of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury. Born in 1707, he lived at a time contemporary with some great 

 scientists, and had free access to their valuable libraries, which he used 

 to great advantage. He gave us many classifications of animal life, 

 and entomology received a large share of his attention. But he gives 

 us no account of insect ravages. 



Studying the natural history of Europe and Asia through succeeding 

 years, from the "Pillars of Hercules" to the "Holy Land," I find no 

 complaint made relative to insects that were destructive to grains or 

 fruits till the last quarter of the eighteenth century, some fifteen years 

 after the voyage of Captain James Cook. In 1768, under the favor of 

 King George III, and under the auspices of the Royal Society of 

 England, Captain Cook sailed from the harbor of Plymouth, accom- 

 panied by Sir Joseph Banks, President of said society, and Doctor 

 Solander, a learned Swede (who was an adept in natural history), to 

 observe at Tahiti the transit of Venus, which was to occur in June, 

 1769. After leaving Tahiti they sailed about the South Seas, visited 

 New Zealand, and reached Australia in November, 1769. Here they 

 spent several weeks, and Messrs. Banks and Solander secured several 

 hundred species of plants hitherto unknown in England. 



On page 9 of Putnam's compilation, we find this statement: " For 

 some time the ' Endeavor' [the ship in which they sailed] remained in 

 the bay, and her captain, with Banks and Solander, made many excur- 

 sions into the country, during which the last two obtained such a variety 

 of flowers and plants that the place was called Botany Bay." Other 

 references to the collection of plants made by Banks and Solander will 

 be found in the annual address of your President before the Seventeenth 

 Fruit Growers' Convention, published in the biennial report of the 

 State Board of Horticulture for 1893, pages 245 and 246. 



These plants were carried to England and thence to all parts of 

 Southern Europe and to the western shores of Asia. Some twelve or 

 fifteen years after this voyage, we hear the first complaints from the 



