THE OUTLOOK FOR APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY.1

THE OUTLOOK FOR APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY.¹

LEGISLATION.

The amount of legislation in different countries that has of late years been deemed necessary or sufficiently important, in view of injurious insects, is a striking evidence of the increased attention paid to applied entomology; and while modern legislation of this kind has been, on the whole, far more intelligent than similar efforts in years gone by, many of the laws passed have nevertheless been unwise, futile, and impracticable, and even unnecessarily oppressive to other interests. The chief danger here is the intervention of politics or political methods. Expert counsel should guide our legislators and the steps taken should be thorough in order to be effective. We have had of late years in Germany very good evidence of the excellent results flowing from thorough methods, and the recent legislation in Massachusetts against the gypsy moth (Ocneria dispar), which at one time threatened to become farcical, has, fortunately, proved more than usually successful; the commission appointed to deal with the subject having worked with energy and followed competent advice.

PUBLICATION.

On the question of publication of the results of our labors it is perhaps premature to dwell at length. Each of the experiment stations is publishing its own bulletins and reports quite independently of the others, but after a uniform plan recommended by the association with which we meet here; and with but one exception that has come to my notice, another important recommendation of the same association—that these publications shall be void of all personal matter—has been kept in mind. The National Bureau of Experiment Stations at Washington is doing what it can with the means at command to further the general work by issuing the Experiment Station Record, devoted chiefly to digests of the State station bulletins. There is a serious question in my mind as to the utility of State digests by the national department of results already published extensively by the different States and distributed under government frank to all similar institutions and to whomsoever is interested enough to ask for them.

Such digests may or may not be intelligently made, and, even under the most favorable circumstances, will hardly serve any other purpose than helping to the reference to the original articles, and this could undoubtedly be done more satisfactorily to the stations and to the people at large by general and classified indices to all the State documents, made as full as possible and issued at stated intervals. Only a small proportion of the bulletins have been so far noticed by digest in this record, with no particular rule, so far as I can see, in the selection. In point of fact, those will be most apt to be noticed whose authors can find time to themselves send or make for the purpose their own abstracts. This is, perhaps, inevitable under present arrangements. Complete and satisfactory digests of all, if intelligent and critical, imply a far greater force than is at present at Prof. Atwater's command.

Under these circumstances, it would seem wiser to devote all the energies of the bureau to digests of the similar literature of other countries, which would be of immense advantage to our people and to the different station workers. Judging from the recommendations and resolutions of the general association, this is the view very generally held, but except in chemistry and special industries like that of beet sugar, very little of that kind of work has yet been attempted.

What is true of the station publications in general is equally true of special publications. As entomologist of the department, I have been urged to bring together, at stated intervals, digests of the entomological publications of the different stations. Such digests to be of any value, however, should also be critical, and it were a thankless task for any one to be critic or censor even of that which needs correction or criticism. Moreover, to do this work intelligently would require increase of the divisional force, which at present is more advantageously employed, for, as already intimated, I should have great doubts of the utility of these digests.

I believe, however, that the division should strive for such increase of means as would justify the periodic publication, either independently or as a part of the department record, of general and classified indices to the entomological matter of the station bulletins, and should work more and more toward giving results from other parts of the world. This could, perhaps, best be done by titles of subject and of author so spaced and printed on stout paper that they could be cut and used in the ordinary card catalogue. The recipient could cut and systematically place the titles as fast as received.

As to the character of the matter of the entomological bulletins, it will inevitably be influenced by the needs and demands of the people of the respective States, and while originality should be kept in mind, there must needs be in the earlier years of the work much restatement of what is already well known. That some results have been published of work which reflects no particular credit upon our calling is a mere incident of the new positions created. Yet we may expect marked improvement from year to year in this direction, and without being invidious, I would cite those of Prof. Gillette's on his spraying experiments and on the plum curculio and plum gouger, as models of what such bulletins should be.

Although the resolution offered at our last meeting by Prof. Cook, to the effect that purely descriptive matter should be excluded from the station bulletins, met with no favor, but was laid on the table, by the general association, I am in full sympathy with this position and am strongly of the opinion that in the ordinary bulletins such purely technical and descriptive matter should be reduced to the necessary minimum consistent with clearness of statement and accuracy, and that if it is desired, on the part of the station entomologists, to issue technical and descriptive papers, a separate series of bulletins were better instituted for this class of matter.

Finally, for results which it is desired to promptly get before the people, the agricultural press is at our disposal, and so far as the entomological work of the department of agriculture is concerned, the periodical bulletin, Insect Life, was established for this purpose. Its columns are open to all station workers, and I would here appeal to the members of the association to help make it, as far as possible, national, by sending brief notes and digests of their work as it progresses. Hitherto we have been unable to make as much effort in this direction as we desired, but in future it is our hope to make the bulletin, as far as possible, a national medium through which the results of work done in all parts of the country may quickly be put on record and distributed, not only to all parts of our own country, but to all parts of the world.

The rapid growth and development of the national department and the multiplication of its divisions have necessitated special modes of publication and rendered the annual report almost an anachronism so far as it pretends to be what it at one time was—a pretty complete report of the scientific and other work of the department. The attempts which I have made through the proper authorities to get Congress to order more pretentious monographic works in quarto volume similar to those issued by other departments of the government have not met with encouragement, and in this direction many of the stations will, let us hope, be able to do better.

CO-OPERATION.

Every other subject that might be considered on this occasion must be subordinate to the one great question of co-operation. With the large increase of actual workers in our favorite field, distributed all over the country, the necessity for some co-operation and co-ordination must be apparent to every one. Just how this should be brought about or in what direction we may work toward it, will be for this association in its deliberations to decide. Nor will I venture to anticipate the deliberations and conclusions of the special committee appointed to take the matter into consideration, beyond the statement that there are many directions in which we can adopt plans for mutual benefit. Take, for instance, the introduction and dissemination of parasites. How much greater will be the chance of success in any particular case if we have all the different station entomologists interested in some specific plan to be carried out in co-operation with the national department, which ought to have better facilities of introducing specimens to foreign countries or to different sections of our own country than any of the State stations.

Let us suppose that the fruit growers of one section of the country, comprising several States in area, need the benefit in their warfare against any particularly injurious insect of such natural enemy or enemies as are known to help the fruit growers of some other section. There will certainly be much greater chances of success in the carrying out of any scheme of introduction if all the workers in the one section may be called upon through some central or national body to help in the introduction and disposition of the desired material into the other section. Or, take the case of the boll worm investigation already alluded to. The chances of success would be much greater if the entomologists in all the States interested were to give some attention to such lepidopterous larvæ as are found to be affected with contagious diseases and to follow out some specific plan of cultivating and transmitting them to the party or parties with whom the actual trials are intrusted. The argument applies with still greater force to any international efforts. I need hardly multiply instances. There is, it is true, nothing to prevent any individual station entomologist from requesting co-operation of the other stations, nor is there anything to prevent the national department from doing likewise; but in all organization results are more apt to flow from the power to direct rather than from mere liberty to request or to plead. The station entomologist may be engrossed in some line of research which he deems of more importance to the people of his State, and may resent being called upon to divert his energies; and with no central or national power to decide upon plans of co-operation for the common weal, we are left to voluntary methods, mutually devised, and it is here that this association can, it seems to me, most fully justify its organization. And this brings me to the question of

THE DEPARTMENT AND THE STATIONS.

Immediately connected with the question of co-operation is the relation of the National Department of Agriculture and the State experiment stations. The relation, instead of being vital and authoritative, is, in reality, a subordinate one. Many persons interested in the advancement of agriculture foresaw the advantage of having experiment stations attached to the State agricultural colleges founded under the Morrill act of 1862; but I think that in the minds of most persons the establishment of these stations implied some such connection with the national department as that outlined in an address on Agricultural Advancement in the United States, which I had the honor to deliver in 1879 before the National Agricultural Congress, at Rochester, and in which the following language was used:

"In the light of the past history of the German experimental stations and their work, or of that in our own State of Connecticut, the expediency of purchasing an experimental farm of large dimensions in the vicinity of Washington is very questionable. There can be no doubt, however, of the value of a good experimental station there that shall have its branches in every State of the Union. The results to flow from such stations will not depend upon the number of acres at command, and it will be far wiser and more economical for the commissioner to make each agricultural college that accepted the government endowment auxiliary to the national bureau, so that the experimental farm that is now, or should be, connected with each of these institutions might be at its service and under the general management of the superintendent of the main station. There is reason to believe that the directors of these colleges would cheerfully have them constituted as experimental stations under the direction of the department, and thus help to make it really national—the head of a vast system that should ramify through all parts of the land....

"With the different State agricultural colleges, and the State agricultural societies, or boards, we have every advantage for building up a national bureau of agriculture worthy of the country and its vast productive interests, and on a thoroughly economical basis, such as that of Prussia, for instance."

In short, the view in mind was something in the nature of that which has since been adopted by our neighbors of the North, where there is a central or national station or farm at Ottawa and sub-stations or branch farms at Nappan, Nova Scotia, Brandon, Manitoba, Indian Head, N.W.T., and Agassiz, British Columbia, all under the able direction of Mr. William Saunders, one of our esteemed fellow workers. It was my privilege to be a good deal with Mr. Saunders when he was in Europe studying the experience of other countries in this matter, and the policy finally adopted in Canada as a result of his labors is an eminently wise one, preventing some of the difficulties and dangers which beset our plan, whether as between State and nation or college and station.

Under the present laws and with the vast influence which the Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations will wield, both in Congress and in the different States, there is great danger of transposition, in this agricultural body politic, of those parts which in the animal body are denominated head and tail, and the old saw to the effect that "the dog wags the tail because the tail cannot wag the dog," will find another application. So far as the law goes, the national department, which should hold a truly national position toward State agricultural institutions depending on federal support, can do little except by suggestion, whether in the line of directing plans or in any way co-ordinating or controlling the work of the different stations throughout the country. The men who influenced and shaped the legislation which resulted in the Hatch bill were careful that the department's function should be to indicate, not to dictate; to advise and assist, not to govern or regulate. We have, therefore, to depend on such relationships and such plans of co-operation as will appear advantageous to all concerned, and these can best be brought about through such associations as are now in convention here.

Without such plans there is great danger of such waste of energy and means and duplication of results as will bring the work into popular disfavor and invite disintegration, for already there is a growing feeling that agricultural experiment is and will be subordinated to the ordinary college work in the disposition of the federal appropriations.

What is true of the national department as a whole in its connection with the State stations is true in a greater or less degree of the different divisions of the department in connection with the different specialists of the stations. With the multiplicity of workers in any given direction in the different States, the necessity for national work lessens. A favorite scheme of mine in the past, for instance (and one I am glad to say fully indorsed by Prof. Willits), was to endeavor to have a permanent agent located in every section of the country that was sufficiently distinctive in its agricultural resources and climate, or, as a yet further elaboration of the same plan, one in each of the more important agricultural States. The necessity for such State agents has been lessened, if not obviated, by the Hatch bill, and the subsequent modifications looking to permanent appropriations to the State stations or colleges, which give no central power at Washington. The question then arises, What function shall the national department perform? Its influence and field for usefulness have been lessened rather than augmented in the lines of actual investigation in very many directions. Many a State is already far better equipped both as to valuable surrounding land, laboratory and library facilities, more liberal salaries, and greater freedom from red tape, administrative routine, and restrictions as to expenditures, than we are at Washington; and, except as a directing agent and a useful servant, I cannot see where the future growth of the department's influence is to be outside of those federal functions which are executive. Just what that directing influence is to be is the question of the hour, not only in the broader but in the special sense. The same question, in a narrower sense, had arisen in the case of the few States which employed State entomologists. In the event, for instance, of an outbreak of some injurious insect, or in the event of any particular economic entomological question within the limits of the State having such an officer, the United States entomologist would naturally feel that any effort on his part would be unnecessary, or might even be looked upon as an interference. He would feel that there was always danger of mere duplication of observation or experiment, except where appealed to for aid or co-operation. This is, perhaps, true only of insects which are local or sectional, and is rather a narrow view of the matter, but it is one brought home from experience, and is certainly to be considered in our future plans. The favor with which the museum work of the national division was viewed by you at the meeting last November and the amount of material sent on for determination would indicate that the building up of a grand national reference collection will be most useful to the station workers. But to do this satisfactorily we need your co-operation, and I appeal to all entomologists to aid in this effort by sending duplicates of their types to Washington, and thus more fully insuring against ultimate loss thereof.

STATUS OF OUR SOCIETY.

This train of thought brings up the question of the status of our society with the station entomologists as represented by the committee of the general association. Those of us who had desired a national association for the various purposes for which such associations are formed, felt, I believe, if I may speak for them, that the creation of the different experimental stations rendered such an organization feasible. Your organization at Toronto and the constitution adopted and amended at the meeting at Washington all indicate that the chief object was the advancement of our chosen work and that the strength of the association would come from the experiment station entomologists. There was then no other organization of the kind, nor any intimation that such a one would be founded. Some of us therefore were surprised to learn from the circular sent out by Prof. Forbes, its chairman, that the committee appointed by the association of agricultural colleges and experiment stations, and through which we had hoped to communicate and co-operate with that association, was not in the proper sense a committee, but a section which has prepared (and in fact was required by the executive committee and the rules of the superior body to prepare) a programme of papers and discussions for the meeting to be held at the same time and place with our own. I cannot but feel that this is in some respects a misfortune, and it will devolve upon you to decide upon several questions of importance that will materially affect our future existence. That there is not room for two national organizations having the same objects in view and meeting at the same time and place goes, I think, without saying; and if the committee of the general association is to be anything more than a committee in the proper sense of the word, or if it is to assume with or without formal constitution the functions of our own association, then our own must necessarily be crippled, and to do any good at all must meet at a different time and a different place. A committee or section, or whatever it may be called, of the general association with which we meet, would preclude active membership of any but those who come within the constitution of that body. Our Canadian friends and many others who have identified themselves with applied entomology, and do not belong to any of our State or government institutions, would be debarred from active representation, however liberal the association may have been in inviting such to participate, without power to vote in its deliberations. Our own association has, or should have, no such limitations. Some of us who are entitled to membership in both bodies may feel indifferent as to the course finally decided upon, and that it will not make any difference whether we have an outside and independent organization, as that of the association of official chemists, or whether we do, as did the botanists and horticulturists, waive independence in favor of more direct connection with the general association, provided there is some way whereby the committees of the general association are given sufficient latitude and time to properly present their papers and deliberate; but there are others who feel more sensitive as to their action and are more immediately influenced by the feelings of the main body. I hope that whatever action be taken at this meeting, the general good and the promotion of economic entomology will be kept in mind and that no sectional or personal feeling will be allowed to influence our deliberations.

SUGGESTION AND COMMENT.

You will, I know, pardon me if, before concluding these remarks, I venture to make a few comments which, though not altogether agreeable, are made in all sincerity and in the hope of doing good. The question as to how far purely technical and especially descriptive and monographic work should be done by the different stations or by the national department is one which I have already alluded to and upon which we shall probably hold differing opinions, and which will be settled according to the views of the authorities at the different stations. Individually, I have ever felt that one ostensibly engaged in applied entomology and paid by the State or national government to the end that he may benefit the agricultural community can be true to his trust only by largely overcoming the pleasure of entomological work having no practical bearing. I would, therefore, draw the line at descriptive work except where it is incidental to the economic work and for the purpose of giving accuracy to the popular and economic statements. This would make our work essentially biological, for all biologic investigation would be justified, not only because the life habits of any insect, once ascertained, throw light on those of species which are closely related to it, but because we can never know when a species at present harmless may subsequently prove harmful, and have to be classed among the species injurious to agriculture.

On the question of credit to their original sources of results already on record, it is hardly necessary for me to advise, because good sense and the consensus of opinion will in the end justify or condemn a writer according as he prove just and conscientious in this regard.

There is one principle that should guide every careful writer, viz., that in any publications whatever, where facts or opinions are put forth, it should always be made clear as to which are based upon the author's personal experience and which are compiled or stated upon the authority of others. We should have no patience with a very common tendency to set forth facts, even those relating to the most common and best known species, without the indications to which I have referred. The tendency belittles our calling and is generally misleading and confusing, especially for bibliographic work, and cannot be too strongly deprecated.

On this point there will hardly be any difference of opinion, but I will allude to another question of credit upon which there prevails a good deal of loose opinion and custom. It is the habit of using illustrations of other authors without any indication of their original source.

This is an equally vicious custom and one to be condemned, though I know that some have fallen into the habit, without appreciation of its evil effect. It is, in my judgment, almost as blameworthy as to use the language or the facts of another without citing the authority.

Every member of this association who has due appreciation of the time and labor and special knowledge required to produce a good and true illustration of the transformations and chief characteristics of an insect will appreciate this criticism. However pardonable in fugitive newspaper articles in respect of cuts which, from repeated use, have become common or which have no individuality, the habit inevitably gives a certain spurious character to more serious and official publications, for assumption of originality, whether intended or not, goes with uncredited matter whether of text or figure. Nor is mere acknowledgment of loan or purchase to the publisher, institution or individual who may own the block or stone what I refer to. But that acknowledgment to the author of the figure or the work in which it first appears which is part of conscientious writing, and often a valuable index as to the reliability of the figure.

It were supererogation to point out to a body of this kind the value of the most careful and thorough work in connection with life histories and habits, often involving as it does much microscopic study of structure. The officers of our institutions who control the funds, and more or less fully our conduct, are apt to be somewhat impatient and inappreciative of the time given to anatomic work, and where it is given for the purpose of describing species and of synopsizing or monographing higher groups, without reference to agriculture, I am firmly of the belief that it diverts one from economic work, but where pursued for a definite economic purpose it cannot be too careful or too thorough and I know of no instances better calculated to appeal to and modify the views of those inclined to belittle such structural study than Phylloxera and Icerya. On the careful comparison of the European and American specimens of Phylloxera vastatrix, involving the most minute structures and details, depended originally those important economic questions which have resulted in legislation by many different nations and the regeneration of the affected vineyards of Europe, of our own Pacific coast, and of other parts of the world by the use of American resistant stocks. In the case of Icerya purchasi the possibilities of success in checking it by its natural enemies hung at one time upon a question of specific difference between it and the Icerya sacchari of Signoret—a question of minute structure which the descriptions left unsettled and which could only be settled by the most careful structural study and the comparison of the types, involving a trip to Europe.

CONCLUSION.

I have thus touched, gentlemen, upon a few of the many subjects that crowd upon the mind for consideration on an occasion like this—a few gleanings from a field which is passing rich in promise and possibility. It is a field that some of us have cultivated for many years and yet have only scratched the surface, and if I have ventured to suggest or admonish, it is with the feeling that my own labors in this field are ere long about to end and that I may not have another occasion.

At no time in the history of the world has there, I trow, been gathered together such a body of devoted and capable workers in applied entomology. It marks an era in our calling and, looking back at the progress of the past fifteen years, we may well ponder the possibilities of the next fifteen. They will be fruitful of grand results in proportion as we persistently and combinedly pursue the yet unsolved problems and are not tempted to the immediate presentation of separate facts, which are so innumerable and so easily observed that their very wealth becomes an element of weakness. Epoch-making discoveries result only from this power of following up unswervingly any given problem, or any fixed ideal. The kerosene emulsion, the Cyclone nozzle, the history of Phylloxera vastatrix, of Phorodon humuli, of Vedalia cardinalis, are illustrations in point, and while we may not expect frequent results as striking or of as wide application as these, there is no end of important problems yet to be solved and from the solution of which we may look for similar beneficial results. Applied entomology is often considered a sordid pursuit, but it only becomes so when the object is sordid. When pursued with unselfish enthusiasm born of the love of investigation and the delight in benefiting our fellow men, it is inspiring, and there are few pursuits more deservedly so, considering the vast losses to our farmers from insect injury and the pressing need that the distressed husbandman has for every aid that can be given him. Our work is elevating in its sympathies for the struggles and suffering of others. Our standard should be high—the pursuit of knowledge for the advancement of agriculture. No official entomologist should lower it by sordid aims.

During the recent political campaign the farmer must have been sorely puzzled to know whether his interests needed protection or not. On the abstract question of tariff protection to his products we, as entomologists, may no more agree than do the politicians or than does the farmer himself. But ours is a case of protection from injurious insects, and upon that there can nowhere be division of opinion. It is our duty to see that he gets it with as little tax for the means as possible.

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Address of Dr. C.V. Riley at the annual meeting of the Association of Economic Entomologists, Champaign, Ills., November 11 to 14, 1890.