Dear Mr. Fuller,—I would very gladly in reply to your request, offer you any suggestion in my power, but I scarcely know whether my ideas would be serviceable. Judging by my own experiences in purchase by farmers or fruit-growers of books which they certainly need and wish to have the information contained in, I should not expect any publisher to take any MS. of mine as a speculation. The good folks wish for the books, but they do not, at least only a very small proportion of them (I am speaking of agriculturists) wish to buy. My work is done at a great money loss, and my publishers do not take my books as a speculation, but act in fact as my agents. Could you not get your MS. published in a serial, with a stipulation, that you held copyright, and so your valuable information would be brought forward without cost to yourself.
There is another point. The differences in species, even in genera, are terribly difficult to be sure of amongst many of the Scale insects, and many of the Aphides, and unless fruit-growers have magnifiers and knowledge how to use them, I should not expect them to identify to any trustworthy purpose. If you brought out a strictly scientific work this of course would be very valuable as a book of reference, and Prevention and Remedies added would make it very useful indeed; but if you look forward to purchase by the public, I am afraid you will not find it happen.
Please excuse rather a hurried letter to catch the evening post, and believe me,
Yours very truly,
Eleanor A. Ormerod.
CHAPTER XXII
LETTERS TO MR. JANSON AND MR. MEDD
Deer Forest fly—Flour moths—Weevils—Grouse and Cheese flies—Beetles—Agricultural Education Committee—The Water-baby Leaflet—Paper on Wasps.
Mr. Janson, addressed in the opening letters of this chapter, occupied the position of technical expert, to whom Miss Ormerod referred her generally accurate identifications of insects for confirmation. The cases of flour infestation referred to we have learned of in Chapter X., “Legal Experiences.” The language employed is more technical than in any other part of her correspondence—the words of an expert addressing herself to another expert in the language of their common subject. Mr. Medd’s name has been more associated with education than entomology, especially in relation to the comparatively new branch of “Nature Study.”
To Mr. O. E. Janson, Technical Expert in Entomology, 44, Great Russell Street, W.C.