December, ’20] 
PIERCE: COMMERCIAL ENTOMOLOGY 
455 
gives his advice for which he charges a fee, or he undertakes to make an 
examination or inspection for a definite fee. Upon completion of his 
inspection, the client may ask for advice as to the best method of pro¬ 
cedure and the cost, and may then decide to let the contract to the 
entomologist to do the work. He will in the majority of cases 
conclude that the professional entomologist can secure the materials 
and administer them more efficiently and cheaply than he himself 
can do. 
This, then, is a sketch of what the commercial entomologist can do 
for the individual client. When we come to consider the large scale 
operations for an organization of growers, a community, state or gov¬ 
ernment, we then find it absolutely essential that a business organiza¬ 
tion plan and execute the entire job. What are these large scale oper¬ 
ations? They may be drainage propositions against mosquitoes, or 
horseflies, or wireworms; they may be eradication projects against in¬ 
sect-harboring weeds; or great wholesale fumigation of all the trees in 
a community; the introduction of foreign parasites; the spraying of 
vegetation, or treatment of the soil; or they may contemplate a variety 
of activities, all aimed at a comprehensive large scale eradication or 
control of a pest. 
The commercial entomologist will go still farther, and will develop 
new insecticides and new apparatus for applying the same, and will in 
everywise devote his attention to making entomological service 
efficient. 
Service Is the Only Reason for the Existence of Entomology 
We will grant that in the early days of entomology, it was only a 
hobby of a few men who liked to study insects. But when we get 
down to the bottom of things, in this age of efficiency, we must agree 
that the only valid reason for the existence of any profession is the 
service it can render humanity. We who have been in entomology 
a decade or more have been frequently challenged by outsiders to show 
of what value our science is to mankind. We have stayed by our sci¬ 
ence because we believe that it has a distinct and great service to render, 
although many of us have felt that we were falling far short of our 
potentiality. It is only as we look at the damage insects do, or the 
products they produce, and study the many economic aspects of the 
question that we can gain the proper conception of our own sphere of 
activity. 
We can proudly hold up our heads and tell the world that the ento¬ 
mologists hold the keys to the doors which will close out the depre¬ 
dators and thieves of agriculture; that we are equipped to quench the 
losses annually experienced by our animals and our crops. We must 
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