INTRODUCTORY. 



Two principal causes have conspired to delay the publication of this volume. 

 First, the unavoidable detention of the cuts that so well illustrate Prof. Forbes's 

 paper on Insects afi'ecting the Strawberry, by the State Printers of Illinois, who 

 had them in use in the publication of the Professor's Report as Entomologist of 

 that State; and second, the delay incident to the jireparation, by a Philadelphia 

 artist, of the elegant and life-like engraving of the late Dr. Warder, with which 

 the volume is now so handsomely adorned. 



Trusting that members and others interested will accept the above explanation 

 as satisfactory, and that errors and defects may be chargeable to an incompetent 

 and overworked Secretary, this, the second volume of Transactions of the Missis- 

 sippi Valley Horticultural Society, is "turned adrift" to receive such commenda- 

 tion and criticism as it mav deserve. Secretary. 



