L'CS STATE HORTIOULTURA.L SOCIETY. 



haril, sbarp-poiated and pawerful, well calcaUted to carry terror and 

 destruction into the ranks of other insects. Unfortunately, they do 

 not frequent cultivated fields as much as they do road-sides. Their 

 larviB burrow into sandy soil and stay there with head even with the 

 surface, waiting for any unlucky creepinj? thing that may cotne along. 

 There are many other insect helpers, but the ones here named 

 have always seemed to us the most important in the garden, and we 

 have tried to help and protect them, as they have helped us and pro- 

 tected our crops. 



Early Explorations in Soiitliern Missouri. 



By Mrs. Harriet E. Shepard, Springfield, Mo. 



The opportunity for preserving much] that is valuable in regard 

 to the region of country in which we live is fast passing away. We 

 are on the boundary line between the old and the new, with but few 

 links to connect us with many of the events of the past — events which, 

 in the years to come, historians may seek in vain to trace, and rela- 

 tionships which the future student of ethnology may find it difiBcult to 

 establish. For already much that we should like to know about those 

 who have lived before us has passed into oblivion. Concerning a large 

 and powerful race who peopled the territory of the Ozarks, history 

 contains but a few meager paragraphs; and of the witnesses of many 

 of the mast interesting periods in the struggles which have marked 

 the progress of civilization with us, but few remain to give personal 

 testimony of what has been. This is the time in which should be 

 gathered up all the scattered threads that may guide to a knowledge of 

 the past— the golden opportunity for such local research as shall 

 authentically fix, in history, the place of events comparatively recent, 

 and pave the way for a perfect knowledge, in the future, of all the 

 successive steps in the development of our State. 



Anyone who has lived for a considerable period of time in South- 

 ern Missouri must frequently have come in contact with the evidences 

 of its early occupation, and must have experienced some astonish- 

 ment at the scantiness of the literature relating to the subject. 



Tiie desire to search out some of the isolated sources of informa- 

 tion, and to put into form some record, though brief, of the proper 

 relation as to time and events of the men who were the first to pene- 

 trate the primeval solitudes of Missouri, and to give some account of 

 the habits and characteristics of the early settlers of our own portions 

 of the State, has been the incentive in selecting this subject to present 

 to you. If, in connection with this, I can demonstrate the forces which 



