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JOURNAL OF ECONO:\IIC ENTOMOLOGY 



[Vol. 8 



tically no teachers of entomology. Hagen had a few students at Har- 

 vard, but did not touch on the economic aspects of the science; Gom- 

 stock was just beginning to teach at Cornell; Burrill was giving a few 

 lectures out west, and Fernald was soon to begin at Orono. 



When Doctor Houston took office as Secretary of Agriculture July 1, 

 1913, the annual appropriation to the Department was practically 

 eighteen milhons of dollars (117,986,945) and there were 14,478 employ- 

 ees. The Department had become the greatest research organiza- 

 tion in the world. The appropriations for entomology were 1742,210. 

 The entomological service had become a large Bureau with about six 

 hundred employees of whom more than two hundred were scientifically 

 trained experts. Every state had its competent agricultural experi- 

 ment station with a force of entomologists. Practically every state 

 had also its agricultural college with teaching in general and economic 

 entomology. In California there were even County Entomologists, 

 and Boston and Philadelphia had their City Entomologists. 



In a w^ay the wonderful general increase in agricultural research and 

 agricultural endeavor had carried economic entomology along with it. 

 The passage of the Hatch act and the consequent founding of the state 

 experiment stations were responsible at once for a great increase in 

 the number of working entomologists, w^hile in immediate succession 

 the introduction of the gipsy moth into New England, the appearance 

 of the San Jose scale in the east, the march of the cotton boll weevil 

 into the southern states, and the discovery of the carriage of disease 

 to man and animals by insects, have made the importance of entomo- 

 logical work greater and greater. It is no wonder that the country 

 rose to these emergencies; that Congress and the legislatures have 

 given large appropriations, and that by virtue of the successful in- 

 vestigations of our rapidly increasing group of entomological workers, 

 the United States has already gained a commanding position among the 

 nations of the world in this branch of apphed science. 



It is not generally realized, except among a limited group of teachers, 

 just how this extraordinary advance in a few years has influenced the 

 number of students seeking information on economic entomology at 

 the different institutions, nor just in what way it has influenced the 

 character of the instruction. The present year in six of the leading 

 agricultural colleges where most attention is paid to economic ento- 

 mology, there are 1531 students in entomology and 51 teachers of en- 

 tomology. These institutions are the Ohio State University, the 

 University of California, Cornell University, the Massachusetts Agri- 

 cultural College, the University of Illinois and the University of Ne- 

 braska. These six I have chosen because the}^ have the largest num- 

 ber of students in this line, but in every agricultural college in the 



