U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 525 
New Zealand, South Sea Isles, Philippines, Formosa, and 
Japan; sweet potatoes and yams from all foreign countries ; 
banana plants from all foreign countries including Hawaii 
and Porto Rico. 
403. United States Department of Agriculture. — The 
fruit-fly illustration introduces us to the larger study of the 
work of the Department of Agriculture and we may begin 
with one of its subdivisions, the Bureau of Entomology. 
During the past forty years Dr. L. 0. Howard has been 
either assistant director or director of this bureau. He and 
his numerous associates have been making discoveries about 
insects and applying to human welfare not only the new 
things that they have been learning about insects but the 
new discoveries made all over the world. 
We may gain some idea of the amount and kind of work 
done in this Bureau by simply reading over the following 
subjects, each of which received special study in this Bureau 
during the year ending August 1, 1917: Work on the gypsy 
moth and brown-tail moth; deciduous-fruit insect investi¬ 
gations ; southern field crop insect investigations; investiga¬ 
tions of the insects affecting the health of man ; insects affect¬ 
ing the health of domestic animals; cereal and forage insect 
investigations ; investigations of insects affecting forest and 
shade trees, forest products, and hardy shrubs; investiga¬ 
tions of insects injurious to vegetables and truck crops; 
stored-product investigations; insects affecting tropical and 
subtropical fruits ; bee-culture investigations. 
The extent to which man can control the multitude of 
insect pests and utilize the beneficial insects furnishes a good 
measure of human progress in this realm of biology. 
This outline of the work in the Bureau of Entomology 
reveals but one of several related fields of activity in which 
the United States Government is trying to help us gain 
control of our environment. You should become equally 
familiar with the other divisions of this work. This your 
