The scouting of cotton to determine the Level of pest populations, primarily to make decisions on insecticide use, requires both art and science. Scouting varies a great deal from area to area and person to person but rests on the common denominator of science - incomplete as it is - which has provided us with practical methods of scouting and to some extent economic thresholds. Since no final answer has been reached relative to scouting, the individual scouts' capabilities and intuitiveness are of extreme importance. This is an area of considerable concern as I believe that both the art and science of cotton scouting are losing ground. The students that we are turning out today are spending more and more time in the laboratories and behind computers rather than the long hours in the field required to nurture and develop their natural abilities. Perhaps this is not so important relative to the development of statistically sound sampling techniques (science) but is with regard to decision-making (art).