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In the spring of 1877 I issued a short pamphlet of seven pages, entitled “Notes for Observations of Injurious Insects,”^[27] in which I suggested how much a series of observations in relation to insect ravages on food crops was to be desired; this not merely for scientific purposes, but with a view to finding means of lessening the amount of yearly loss which tells so heavily on individual growers, and also on the country at large. I pointed out shortly that many insect attacks could be remedied, if attention were directed to the subject; and also that many would probably be found, if reliable information could be procured, to be coincident with multiplication or diminution of insect life. On the way in which this increase and decrease were affected by surroundings, such as plants, &c., suitable for food or shelter; by agricultural conditions, such as drainage, nature of the soil and of manures; and also by the state of the weather—I gave some guiding notes, and requested information from agriculturists and entomologists, who were both practically and scientifically qualified to aid in the matter. I also added some short remarks as to the nature of the entomological observations desired; as of date, and amount of appearance of larvæ (grubs); amount of injury caused; and any other points of use and interest that might occur to the observer. And further (as some sort of assistance in the commencement of the plan of campaign) I gave a list of about eighteen of our commonest crop, fruit, and forest insects, with short descriptions in the very plainest words I could use, in most cases accompanied by illustrations.

As my name was then little before the public, although I had worked on entomology for a good many years, I requested permission of two of my scientific friends, the Rev. T. A. Preston, one of the masters of Marlborough College, and much interested in phenology (i.e., observation of natural phenomena); and Mr. E. A. Fitch, Secretary of the Entomological Society, to allow me to add their names as referees. To this they kindly consented, but with the stipulation from Mr. Preston that he did not wish to co-operate further. I believe I may say with regard to Mr. Fitch such a very small amount of communication took place that it would not have been worth while to mention the matter, excepting pro forma, on account of the names being recorded. These were soon removed from succeeding reports as unnecessary. The pamphlet was widely circulated and the request for observations was responded to far more cordially than could have been expected. Notes regarding insect appearances, together with observations of their habits, and of practicable methods of prevention, were forwarded by observers—who were qualified both as technically scientific and practical workers—from localities scattered over the country as far north as Aberdeenshire in Scotland and south to Hants and Devonshire in England. In fact the communications were quite sufficient to show that the plan was approved of from an agricultural point of view, and might be continued hopefully. In after years I was told that it was very well received by the press. I have been greatly indebted since both to the agricultural and general press, but at the time it did not seem to me to be peculiarly warmly welcomed, nor I think was it likely to be, until it had more to say for itself. The pamphlet was not of many pages; the knowledge of the great mischief caused by insect pests, and the need of prevention of their ravages, was not spread abroad as at the present day, and I was not able at first to utilise to the best advantage the information sent as I had no working reports of my own to help me as to examples of the best methods of arrangement.^[28]

From the first I had excellent contributions. Various members of our Entomological Societies were good enough to send me notes on insects to which they devoted special study, and so also were members of the Meteorological Society, regarding points of natural history, bird life, weather, &c., connected with entomological considerations, and regarding which they were special observers. Agriculturally I had good help also from other quarters, and amongst many who assisted me, I will take leave to especially give the name of the late Mr. Malcolm Dunn, the Duke of Buccleuch’s superintendent at the Palace Gardens, Dalkeith, N.B. We never met, but whenever I applied to him he was unfailing in prompt and serviceable reply. As a commencement, the introductions with which he favoured me to the leading foresters and horticulturists of North Britain, were of such invaluable aid that I should be ungrateful not to mention his name as of one to whom I owe a deep debt of gratitude.

In the report for the year 1881 I altered the plan of arrangement to one which so far as I can judge met all that was needed for practical as well as scientific service so conveniently that I have since adhered to it. The information was classed under headings of (a) farm crops, (b) orchard and bush fruits, and (c) forest trees, regarding which observations of insect attack were forwarded. These headings were arranged alphabetically, for instance: Apple, Bean, Corn and Grass, Hop, Oak, Peas, Pine, Turnip, &c., &c. Any information as to live stock or animal insect pests was similarly placed (that is, alphabetically) amongst the other attacks, under the headings of Deer, Grouse, Horses, &c., &c., as the case might be; but beyond what was absolutely necessary, as in the case of Ox warble, I endeavoured to avoid entering on stock infestations as leading to investigations very unpleasant to myself either to make or to discuss, and very much better left in the hands of veterinary surgeons. Following each heading, the observations were placed which had been contributed during the season, and which appeared to be of sufficient interest to be recorded, regarding the special crop, or fruit, &c., referred to, these being given with locality and date, as far as possible in the contributor’s words, and over his own name, unless by request, or for some special reason. This plan of giving the very fullest recognition possible of the source of the information, I, for three very special reasons, most strongly recommend to the consideration of all my readers not fully accustomed to practical reporting:

1. That thus the information may very often carry conviction with it by the name of some well-known agriculturist or cattle-breeder being appended.

2. That to do otherwise is a robbery of the credit of the contributor, and a false appropriation of it by the reporter, wholly unbecoming an honest worker.

3. That the full recognition is a great protection to the reporter or compiler of the reports from plagiarism of his own work. There are people who think nothing of appropriating the credit of true workers, and who absorb also rewards in the shape of salaries and official position based on their own questionable conduct.

In the year 1881 it seemed desirable to change the running heading at the top of the pages. The name of the crop, fruit, or other subject to which the paper referred was henceforward placed at the top of the left-hand page, and the name of each successive attack to it at the top of the right-hand page; as, for instance, Cabbage at the left side, and the different kinds of infestations recorded during the year which might occur to Cabbage, as Cabbage butterfly (large white), Cabbage-root fly, Cabbage moth, on the right-hand heading. At the beginning of each paper, the name of the crop, or fruit, was given in large capitals, and beneath and at the heading of each successive paper, the name of the injurious insect to be referred to, also in English, with the scientific name, and authority for the same following. The observations of contributors were inserted unbroken, so that the methods of prevention and remedy noted as successful by each observer were thus recorded in connection with the accompanying peculiarities of cultivation, soil, manure, weather, &c. The whole life history of the insect, so far as known or accessible, was given, and sometimes, as in great attacks or in special circumstances, a “summary” of the preceding recorded information; this being, wherever possible, followed by some paragraphs or pages of “Methods of Prevention and Remedy.”

In matters of phraseology, selection of the very plainest and shortest words that I could choose was part of my plan, and after the first few years I exchanged the short table of contents for a plain working index.

Illustration always appeared to me a very important part of the work, so that readers might start with the knowledge of the appearance of the insects under consideration, gained by a glance at the accompanying figure, without having the trouble of trying to form a kind of “mind picture” from the descriptions given, often very unlike the true object.^[29] At first—in the small beginning—the numbers needed were also small, and I think the little stock of figure blocks with which I started, and for which I was indebted to the kind courtesy of a friend, amounted to one dozen! This matter, however, I set right as soon as possible by the purchase from Messrs. Blackie & Sons, of Glasgow, of electros of most of the beautiful wood engravings given in Curtis’s “Farm Insects,” under an agreement that the accommodation was granted on condition of my using the figures only in my own publications. Some of the illustrations I drew myself on the blocks, and as time went on, and infestations, little or not at all entered on before, required illustration, I engaged the valuable assistance of two brothers,^[30] which was continued thenceforward throughout the work. It appears to me that it is hardly possible to exceed the beauty of their work, whether in characteristic representation or in precise and accurate details. I have had great pleasure in the entomological approval which has been bestowed upon it. Illustrations from other sources have of course been used, always, so far as I am aware, most carefully acknowledged; and so far as has been in my power, I have endeavoured that the illustration of each infestation should show the insect (where it was possible to do so) in each of its successive stages of life, as of the caterpillar or maggot (scientifically the larva); the chrysalis (pupa); and the perfect insect, butterfly, beetle, sawfly, &c., as the case might be. This matter is of great importance agriculturally, for how else (it may be asked) in common circumstances, excepting by a good, plain illustration, is a farmer or fruit-grower to know what the connection is between the grubs and maggots which he finds underground or on his trees and the moths or beetles which he may notice in his fields or orchards. To give a single instance, how seldom the grey, cylindrical, legless grubs of the Daddy Longlegs are known to have anything to do with the large, gnat-like, two-winged flies which are to be seen floating over our grass-fields in legions where the larvæ have been destroying underground. And so the work went on, and I believe that I may say that—from the great amount of useful information contributed, together with my own co-operation in entomological verification, adding requisite details, publishing the year’s communications, and distributing them to my contributors—it answered fairly the purpose for which it was set on foot. And year by year we gained knowledge till we possessed serviceable information on the main points, both of habits and means of prevention of the greater number of our really seriously injurious farm, orchard, and forest pests of Britain.

Those who wish to investigate in detail the various kinds of infestation noticed during the first twenty-two years of my observations will find them in “The General Index to my Annual Reports on Injurious Insects, 1877-1898,” compiled at my request by Mr. Robert Newstead.^[31] In this index the insects are arranged alphabetically under their popular and also under their scientific names, with references to the various Annual Reports in which notices of their observation are recorded, or papers given on them, and also of the pages in each paper containing information on their habits and history and means of prevention. Lists are also given of crops and plants, stock, &c., affected. The index thus affords a fair summary of the advance of our knowledge of crop infestation during the years referred to.^[32]

In the year 1881 I published a digest of the information sent in up to date in an octavo volume of 323 pages, very fully illustrated, entitled “Manual of Injurious Insects, with Methods of Prevention and Remedy”; and in 1890 I followed this by a much enlarged demy-octavo second edition of 450 pages, bearing the same title. In 1898, under the title of “Handbook of Insects Injurious to Orchard and Bush Fruits, with Means of Prevention and Remedy,” pp. 280, I included the special observations on fruit infestations which had been sent me. In 1900 I published a pamphlet (also illustrated) entitled “Flies Injurious to Stock” (pp. 80), [p. 304] giving reports of observations of life history and habits, and also of means of prevention of a few kinds of infestation. These were given as shortly as they could serviceably be dealt with, excepting in the case of the Warble fly, Hypoderma bovis. Into this it appeared desirable to enter more fully, it having been under my observation since the year 1884, and having been carefully written on in every detail of habits and means of prevention, as observed by my contributors and myself in this country.

Besides the above publications, I arranged, for gratuitous circulation, various four-page leaflets on our commonest farm pests. Each contained an illustration and as much information as I could manage to condense into the limited space. Among the subjects discussed were the widely destructive Wireworm and equally destructive grubs of the Daddy Longlegs or Cranefly, the Mangold-leaf maggot, the Mustard beetle, the minute Stem eel-worm (which causes the malformed growth of cereal plants known as “tulip root” and does much harm in clover shoots), the Warble fly and the troublesome Forest fly. Our recent investigations have proved this last to be present in two other districts at least, besides the New Forest and its vicinity in Hampshire, to which previously it had been supposed to be almost limited (p. 138). For the leaflet on the Warble fly, its history, and easily practicable methods of prevention and remedy, there has been such a large demand that various issues have been successively printed amounting to 170,000 copies, including 15,000 copies which the Messrs. Murray, of Aberdeen, requested permission to print at their own cost.

The original plan (or rather that which gradually formed in the first few years) of arrangement of the Annual Reports appeared to meet all requirements, so long as the requirements of the case remain unaltered. Year after year such information as had been asked for was sent, gradually completing most of the histories of our seriously injurious crop and orchard insects, but in the report for 1899 it was requisite to make some arrangement for insertion of disconnected additional observations of appearance, habits, &c., of insects, previously referred to. These I gave accordingly in an appendix under the heading of “Short Notices,” not to encumber the report with repetitions that could be avoided.

In 1901, when about to publish my report of observations of the preceding year, it appeared to me that a large proportion of the new information contributed bore on points of scientific entomological interest, or of occasional appearance of little observed attacks of very little interest or use to the majority of our agriculturists and orchard growers, and quite foreign to the broad scale consideration of pests, which was the object of these reports. It seemed something more than unnecessary to continue this work, and I, therefore, inserted the following notice in the preface of my Annual Report for 1900, thus closing the series with the closing century:—

“But now, although with much regret, I am obliged to say that I feel the time has come for discontinuing this series of Annual Reports. When I commenced the work in 1877, comparatively little was known of the habits and means of prevention of insects seriously injurious to our crops, and of this little a very small amount was accessible for public service, and I undertook the series of reports in the hope (so far as in my power lay) of doing something to meet both these difficulties. Firstly, by endeavouring to gain reliable information of the kind needed; and secondly, by publishing this, with all requisite additions, and especially with illustrations, at a price far below the publication expenses, so that it might be accessible to all who wished to purchase, but especially by sending a copy of each Annual Report to each contributor who had favoured me with useful information. It seemed to be but right and fair that those who kindly helped in the work should have their courtesy acknowledged to the best of my power, and I have continued the reciprocation throughout. But the work was hard; for many years for about five or six months all the time I could give to the subject was devoted to arranging the contributions of the season for the Annual Report of the year, with the addition of the best information I could procure from other sources (in every case, whether of contributors or otherwise, fully acknowledged). As the consultation enquiries were kept up during winter as well as summer, I found the work, carried on single-handed, at times very fatiguing. But so long as there appeared to be a call for it, I have tried to do what I could. Now, however, the necessities of the case have (as a matter of course) been gradually changing. Year after year information has been sent, gradually completing the histories of most of our worst insect pests, and now additional information is rare (as is to be expected after twenty-four years’ observations) on points of great agricultural importance.

“I claim no credit to myself in the work; but those who will look over the names of the contributors, given with their information, will see how deeply indebted I am to them, and to other good friends, who have placed their experience and great knowledge at the public service. To them, and to all who have assisted me, and to some who have allowed what began as agricultural communications to ripen into valuable friendship, I offer my grateful thanks and my deep appreciation of their goodness, and I trust they will believe that if, as I well know, much of my work has not been so well done as it would have been in better qualified hands, at least I have earnestly tried to do my very best.”^[33]

On the publication of the above-mentioned report, I received many kind letters from friends, and I was much gratified by the press allusions on the matter. These, obviously, it would not be desirable for me to do more here than just allude to generally, with my thanks.^[34]