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.