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One century has elapsed since Theodore de Saussure published his remarkable investigations relating to the nutrition of plants and to the influences upon plants of certain well-known physical forces. Although preceded by the publications of Duhamel, Hales, Ingenhouss, and Senebier, as well as by those in a somewhat different line, by Konrad Sprengel and others, we may look upon the work of De Saussure as a wonderful production for his time and as strikingly indicative of the status of plant physiological problems a century ago. His paper may be regarded in a sense as the original charter of plant physiology. Prof. Albert M. Reese, of the Syracuse University, has gone to Florida, under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, to collect eggs of the alligator with which to work out its embryology; subsequently he will spend some time at the biological laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of the Dry Tortugas, developing his find of this crocodilian species. The alligator cannot long escape practical extermination. Already they are becoming scarce and the price of hides has gone up enormously in the last few years. The alligator is characteristic of the austroriparian region, ranging from North Carolina to the Rio Grande of Texas. It has never been seen in the Mississippi River north of Rodney, Miss., which is about latitude 32. Twenty-five years ago this reptile existed in great abundance in its range, but as alligator leather became fashionable about that time the demand thus created has reduced the supply by at least 98 per cent. It is said that a person may travel now from Jacksonville to Miami, Fla., without seeing a single alligator. It is estimated that 2,500,000 alligators were killed in Florida from 1880 to 1894. In no country in the world do insects impose a heavier tax on farm products than in the United States. The losses resulting from the depredations of insects on all the plant products of the soil, both in their growing and in their stored state, together with those on live stock, exceed the entire expenditures of the national government, including the pension roll and the maintenance of the army and the navy. Enormous as is the total value of all farm products in this country, it would be very much greater were it, not for the work of these injurious insects. The statistics of agricultural products for the year 1889, of the Twelfth Census, and for subsequent years, gathered by the Bureau of Statistics of this department, indicate an annual value of all the products of the farm of about 5,000,000,000. To one familiar with the work of the important insect pests of the different agricultural products entering into this total it is comparatively easy tp. approximate the probable shrinkage due to in-sects.- The detailed consideration of such shrinkages which follow indicates that they will rarely fall below 10 per cent, and in years of excessive insect damage may amount to 50 per cent or even more of the important staple products of the farm. An annual shrinkage of 10 per cent is a low estimate, which is more often exceeded than fallen below, and indicates, at current farm prices, a money loss of 500,000,000-- the minimum yearly tax which insects lay on the products of the farm. This total comprises, however, only losses suffered by the growing and maturing crops and annually by live stock, and does not include two very considerable and legitimate items, namely, the loss occasioned by insect pests to farm products, chiefly cereals and forage crops, in storage, and to natural forests and-forest products. As shown in the consideration of these two sources of loss presented below, at least 1100,000,000 must be assigned to each, making a total annual tax chargeable to insects of 700,000,000.
