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PREFACE
Biological control of insect pests was initiated in Canada by the pioneering amateur entomologists.
In 1882, William Saunders, a chemist by training and the first Director of the Dominion Experimental
Farms, imported Trichogramma mimilltm Riley from New York State for liberation in Ontario gardens
against the imported currantworm, Nematus ribesii (Scop.). James Fletcher, a parliamentary clerk
and the first Dominion Entomologist, made several introductions of parasites and disease organisms
during his stewardship from 1884 to 1908. The basic concept and the tradition of biological control
were, therefore, well established before C. G. Hewitt, an ardent supporter of the method and the
architect of Canada's first professional entomological service, took office in 1909.
Canadian interest in biological control was stimulated at this time by developments under
L. O. Howard, Chief of the United States Bureau of Entomology, who made available facilities and
scientific assistance from the Melrose Highlands Parasite Laboratory. In 1915, a small Natural
Control Investigations Laboratory was built at Fredericton on the campus of the University of New
Brunswick. This function was transferred in 1923 to Ontario with successive headquarters in ever
larger houses at St. Thomas, Chatham (1925) and Belleville (1929), where it was renamed the
Dominion Parasite Laboratory. In 1936, a 4O-room companion insectary, with air-conditioning and
quarantine safeguards, was built; and in 1955 the original office structure was replaced by a modern
office-laboratory building. The establishment at Belleville is now known as the Entomology Research
Institute for Biological Control and is part of the Research Branch, Canada Department of Agriculture.
The potentialities of insect pathogens as control agents were glimpsed in the early years of
biological control work in Canada. However, it was not until 1940 that an intensive study of a virus
disease of the European spruce sawfly, Diprioll hercY1/;ae (Htg.), was initiated. The findings gave
further impetus to investigations in this field. A fully modern Insect Pathology Laboratory was
completed at Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., in 1950 and is now known as the Insect Pathology Research
Institute, Forest Entomology and Pathology Branch, Canada Department of Forestry. This institute,
together with an air-conditioned wing for similar studies in the new building at Belleville, provides
good facilities for both fundamental and development work with insect pathogens.
Most biological control attempts in Canada were by liberation of imported insect parasites
against pest species that were themselves mostly of foreign origin. Most attempts of the last thirty
years involved the co-operation of several agencies, but the staff at Belleville were invariably implicated.
The Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control, of which the headquarters was at Belleville
in 1940-46 and at Ottawa in 1946-61, was responsible for the greater part of the work overseas.
The Forest Biology Division participated in all attempts against forest insect pests and, since 1954,
carried the primary responsibility for initiating and assessing the results of such programmes. This
division, formerly in the Canada Department of Agriculture, became, in 1960, the Forest Entomology
and Pathology Branch of the Canada Department of Forestry.
Through the years, changes in concept have been almost as striking as changes in available
physical facilities and in organization. The early work in biological control was entirely empirical.
Introductions and releases were made without effective prior assessmcnts of the factors governing
the abundance of the pests in qUt.'Stion and without adequate follow-up appraisals of results. But this
empiricism was true not only of biological control endeavours but of all American economic entomology
of the times. This was the age of entomological technology and it contributed its own measure
of useful and gratifying results. However, such methods suffice mainly for the early developmental
pcriod of any applied science. They prepare the way for precise quantitative methods; and this shift
must occur, in considerable measure at least, if the really complex problems are to be understood
and eventually solved. In Canada, biological control has grown in the period under review from an
out-and-out technology to at least an adolescent science.
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