STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
591 
fested, and is sustaining greater losses from enemies of this kind, than 
any of the other sections of the world the climate and productions of which 
correspond with ours. 
This being our situation, we readily perceive how important, how indis¬ 
pensably necessary it is, that the habits of this class of objects should be 
thoroughly investigated, and that full and correct information with respect 
to them should be obtained and should be disseminated among the cultiva¬ 
tors of our soil. For, with the meager knowledge which they at present 
possess upon this subject, they are powerless, and these pests are allowed 
to commit their depredations unchecked and unopposed. 
As so little knowledge of these creatures is diffused through our commu¬ 
nity, and so very few persons have ever seen the insects which are causing 
such vast losses in our land—the parents which breed the different kinds 
of worms and caterpillars which we see devastating our fields of grain and 
our fruit trees—I have thought I could not render this audience a more 
acceptable service, and occupy a portion of your time this evening more 
profitably, than by exhibiting to you specimens of some of our most de¬ 
structive insects ;—since a first and most important step towards a knowledge 
of any object, is, to have a clear and accurate idea of the looks, the appear¬ 
ance of that object; and it is impossible for the mind to gather from writ¬ 
ten descriptions or from drawings, so vivid and satisfactory an impression 
as is instantly obtained by a view of the thing itself. 
Unfortunately however for an exhibition of this kind, several of the 
most important of our injurious insects are so exceedingly minute, that 
the eye, without the aid of glasses, is unable to discern anything more 
than their general appearance, their size and color. We are obliged to 
take them, however, just as nature has formed them. They will not ex¬ 
pand themselves and become more distinctly visible, for our accommoda¬ 
tion. And in order to see them at all, it is necessary that the specimens 
be taken in the hand, and so held that the strongest light which we have 
in the room, will fall directly upon them. Moreover, these minute objects, 
when dried aud preserved, are so very fragile that a breath of air would 
break them into fragments—so that were they openly exposed, they would 
be destroyed before a dozen persons perhaps had looked at them. I have 
therefore endeavored to make the best arrangements for presenting them 
to your view, that their delicacy will admit of. They are placed in glazed 
boxes, which can be passed from hand to hand through the audience. Aud 
the several specimens in each of the boxes, are ticketed separately, and so 
plainly, that every one will readily understand what it is that he is looking 
at. All the specimens being thus distinctly explained by the labels at¬ 
tached to them, I think everything contained in each box will be intelligi¬ 
ble and perfectly understood by every person into whose hands they come. 
And I would further state, that, as such minute objects can always be 
seen so much better by daylight, than they can be by even the best artifi¬ 
cial light, these same specimens will be on exhibition at the Agricultural 
Itooras, through the day, to-morrow—after which they will be placed in the 
Insect department of the Museum of tho State Agricultural Society. 
