February, ’18] COOLEY: entomology serving the nation 25 
strations and prepare charts and exhibits. He may prepare elementary 
textbooks and in short he has an opportunity of building up a great 
system of public instruction. He will need enthusiasm and he should 
not only lead the farmer to see what he should do but get him to 
actually do it. 
This program suggests a number of things that economic ento¬ 
mologists in general should do for the assistance of the extension 
entomologist. Among these I would mention what may be called 
standardization of methods of control. By this I mean the general 
and official adoption of uniform or standard methods of control for as 
many as possible of our insect pests, such standard methods to become 
the basis of systematic public instruction. I believe that one principal 
reason why we have not made greater progress in leading farmers to 
actually control more of the insect depredators is that we have lacked 
sufficient definiteness in our recommendations. One entomologist has 
recommended one thing and another has proposed a second while per¬ 
haps the more general practice has been to recommend several methods 
and leave the farmer to choose for himself. The result has been in too 
many cases that the farmer has tried none of them. We must re¬ 
member that the farmer is not a specialist, let alone an entomological 
specialist. He is not prepared to decide between remedies. How can 
we expect him to do what we have failed to do? Yet if he does any¬ 
thing it must be something definite and he must have reasonable as¬ 
surance that what he does will repay him for the time and money ex¬ 
pended. He can reasonably ask this of us; we can afford to offer 
nothing less. I realize very fully that there are limitations to the idea 
of standard methods, and that I am liable to be misunderstood. The 
control of insect pests cannot be reduced to a rule of thumb, and yet I 
believe that we can do much to facilitate the work of the extension 
entomologist and of the farmer by making a beginning in what shall 
be a continuous effort toward bringing together such statements of 
control methods as the farmer can and will use. A standard control 
method may vary with the climate, number of brood and other known 
factors in different localities. Let me say that because there are at 
present few if any insects for which we have sufficiently definite in¬ 
formation to enable us to set up standard control programs, is no 
reason why we cannot with fuller information set up such programs. 
There certainly is truth in the assertion that climatic and other con¬ 
ditions vary in different parts of the country and that correspondingly 
the life-histories and habits of insects and their responses to insecti¬ 
cides vary, but it is just as true that in many instances we have failed 
to work out the variations and have left the farmer in the dark. 
Most certainly our duty is to discover the effects of these varying factors 
