And a note about why it's called Fuller's and why Rose

 

https://books.google.com/books?id=-Xy5qw-v_b4C&pg=RA1-PA142&lpg=RA1-PA142&dq=Aramigus+fulleri+Horn+1876&source=bl&ots=0GU5nJKuaZ&sig=lXNWBaMfvRyzgZhBGLmUyuAJFrs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi654nhl_jeAhWJjFQKHQMVAcYQ6AEwEHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=Aramigus%20fulleri%20Horn%201876&f=false

 

https://archive.org/stream/journalof626419541956newy/journalof626419541956newy_djvu.txt

Weiss: Fuller

 

 

185

 

 

ANDREW S. FULLER, EARLY ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGIST

OF NEW JERSEY, 1828 - 1896

 

By Harry B. Weiss

 

From a biographical viewpoint some of our early writers on insects

have been neglected in our entomological literature in favor of their

more prolific and outstanding contemporaries. Andrew S. Fuller was

one of such persons. Only a brief mention was made of him in

Entomological News (June, 1896, p. 192) shortly after his death. The

only other biographical reference to him in entomological literature

occurs in L. O. Howard's "History of Applied Entomology”, (Wash-

ington, D. C., 1930), in which his portrait is reproduced on plate 5.

 

Fuller, an editor, horticulturist, amateur entomologist and writer

was born at Utica, New York, on August 3, 1828, and brought up in

a region devoted to fruit growing. His parents moved to a small farm

near Barre, New York, where he attended a country school and helped

around the farm. After his parents had moved to Milwaukee, Wis-

consin, in 1846 he learned carpentering and with his interest in plants

he started to devote his activities to the construction of greenhouses,

becoming in 1855 the manager of the greenhouses belonging to W. R.

Prince of Flushing, Long Island. This position he held for two years.

He then moved to Brooklyn, New York, and began to cultivate small

fruits, paying particular attention to strawberry improvement. Soon

he began to v/rite articles on horticulture for "Life Illustrated,” the

"New York Tribune” and other papers. The "Tribune” at one time

distributed, as circulation premiums, 300,000 of Fuller's strawberry

plants. And in 1862 his first book "The Illustrated Strawberry Cul-

turist” appeared. In 1851 he married Jennie Clippens and in I860

he moved to Ridgewood, New Jersey, and bought a tract of land

which he improved and then used for experimental purposes.

 

His articles continued to appear in the agricultural and horticul-

tural press. During 1866 and 1867 he edited Woodward's "Record

of Horticulture.” From 1868 until 1894 he was editor of the "Weekly

 

 

186

 

 

New York Entomological Society [Vol. lxii

 

 

Sun” and while connected with this paper he was responsible for

the distribution of seed white potatoes with subscriptions. In 1871

he became the associate editor of "Moore's Rural New Yorker” later

the "Rural New Yorker”, becoming part owner and editor-in-chief

in 1876. However within a year he severed these connections. He

was a member of various organizations and when the New Jersey State

Horticultural Society was organized for the second time in 1875 he

was one of its founders and its vice-president from Bergen County.

At the January, 1876, meeting of this society, in a paper on entomol-

ogy and its relation to horticulture, he stressed the need for knowledge

about injurious insects and said that future progress depended largely

upon success in controlling insects.

 

His books include "The Grape Culturist”, 1864; "The Forest Tree

Culturist”, 1867, which was translated into the German language;

"Practical Forestry”, 1884; "The Propagation of Plants”, 1887; and

the "Nut Culturist”, 1896.

 

In addition to the accumulation of a large horticultural library, he

collected insects and minerals. He specialized in the Coleoptera, for

his collection of which he built a special house. His interests also

embraced the study of prehistoric American pottery. At the time

of his death from a heart attack on May 4, 1896 he was a staff writer

for the "Florists' Exchange,” the "American Agriculturist” and the

"American Gardener”.

 

From 1868 to 1896 he was the author of some 28 papers on a

wide range of economic insects as may be noted by his list of titles

in Henshaw's "Bibliography of American Economic Entomology”

Parts IV and V, 1895 and 1896. He was also the author of a paper

on "Collecting Insects, How to Collect and Transport Them”, 5 pages,

22 V 2 cm., with no place or date of publication.

 

Fuller frequently sent insect specimens or descriptions of insects to

the editors of the "American Entomologist” for identification. In

the "Answers to Correspondents” in the columns of that magazine

and its successors, Fuller's questions and the editors' answers may be

 

 

Sept., 1954]

 

 

Weiss: Fuller

 

 

187

 

 

found in Vol. 1, Nos. 3, 4, 10, 11; Vol. 2, Nos. 4, 8, 10. Similar

references may be found in the "Practical Entomologist”, Vol. 2, No.

9, and in "Insect Life” Vol. 1, page 86. Of Fuller's inquiries nearly

all dealt with species injurious to grapes, strawberries, seeds, black-

berries, etc. On July 16, 1888, he wrote to C. V. Riley about insects

confused with the Hessian fly prior to the Revolution and Riley re-

plied in "Insect Life” that there was no evidence of the existence of

that insect in America at that early period. At times, various writers

have confused the work of the Angoumois grain moth with that of

the Hessian fly. [See Journ. Econ. Ent. Vol. 37, page 838]

 

When the "American Entomologist” began for a second time in

January 1880, after a lapse of ten years, Andrew S. Fuller was

assistant editor, and C. V. Riley was editor. However the October,

1880, issue contained only Riley's name as editor, with the announce-

ment that Fuller had retired from his editorial duties. During the

summer of 1880, Fuller had been in New Mexico where his interests

were likely to call him at any time.

 

In 1875 Fuller sent specimens of a beetle that he had collected in

Montana to Dr. George H. Horn who described it as Aramigus fulleri

in 1876. Since then it has been known as Fuller's rose beetle. In

his "History of Entomology” Essig gives an interesting account of

the spread of this beetle over the world. It was originally collected

by Crotch on brambles at Fayal on the island of Horta, Azores, in

1866 and described by him in 1867 in the Proceedings of the Zoo-

logical Society of London. It received little attention until it appeared

in many parts of the United States and was described again by Horn.

 

Andrew S. Fuller died on May 4, 1896. An obituary presumably

written by Frederick Allen Eddy and published in a Bangor, Maine,

newspaper shortly after his death refers to Fuller's home in Ridge-

wood, New Jersey, having been transformed from a barren waste to

one of the finest places in Bergen County all through the efforts of

Mr. Fuller who was an enthusiast in botany and other natural sci-

ences. Upon his Ridgewood home specimens of nearly every nut

tree in the world were growing, as well as other trees and plants.

 

 

188

 

 

New York Entomological Society [Vol. lxii

 

 

After her husband's death Mrs. Fuller, around December 7, 1897,

sold her husband's collection of Coleoptera to Frederick Allen Eddy

of Bangor, Maine, and it became a part of, or perhaps the basis of

Mr. Eddy's large beetle collection which came to the Museum of

Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts,

after Eddy's death in 1935. Dr. P. J. Darlington, Jr., Curator of In-

sects, Museum of Comparative Zoology, to whom I am indebted for

the above and the following information advised me that according

to a note left by Eddy the Fuller material was in 112 boxes and

included some 4,500 species and 15,000 or 20,000 specimens. Eddy

paid $1,050 for it. The Fuller collection included much rare material

identified by good specialists. Some of it was material from Prof.

Snow of Kansas. Mr. Eddy combined the Fuller collection with his

own and at the Museum of Comparative Zoology the Eddy specimens

are being incorporated in the general collection of North American

beetles. The Fuller specimens were not labelled as such by Eddy

and as he received specimens from many other sources it is difficult

to identify, exactly, the Fuller beetles. However it is assumed that

most of the specimens in the Eddy collection bearing only state ab-

breviations as localities and not labelled by Eddy, are Fuller's. Such

specimens now bearing the label "Frederick Allen Eddy Collection”

in the general collection are probably those of Fuller.

 

 

References

 

Crawford, Nelson Antrim. Andrew S. Fuller. Dictionary of Ameri-

can Biography, New York, 1931.

 

Hexamer, F. M. Andrew S. Fuller sketch in Bailey's Cyclopedia of

American Horticulture, III, p. 6 16. 1906.

 

Woodward, Carl R. The Development of Agriculture in New Jersey,

1640-1880. 1926, p. 235.

 

Obituaries in New York Sun, May 5, 1896; New York Tribune, May

5, 1896; American Agriculturist, May 16, 1896.

 

The beetle that entomologists love: