SUMMER MEETING, 1882. 47 



priations aiding exhibits of the horticultural products of the State, our horti- 

 cultural representatives should continue to importune the Legislature for funds 

 sufficient to maintain a distinctive horticultural department at the college in 

 Lansing. Our societies have received much valuable aid from the faculty at 

 Lansing by their unrequited labors in endeavoring to establish experimental 

 forests, fields, and gardens for tlie purpose of testing the various trees, plants, 

 and flowers, which may prove of value to our State. Experiments for these 

 purposes should be inaugurated in localities possessing suitable soils and the 

 best climatic influences, and should receive support from tlie State commen- 

 surate with the great interests involved in horticulture. 



Observing farmers and fruit-growers are learning much regarding the habits 

 of the great army of insects wliicli prey upon every variety of farm and 

 orchard product, but the aid of a scientific entomologist is indispensable in 

 determining the habits and transformations of our insect enemies and their 

 parasites, and in elucidating the mysteries of the destructive diseases which 

 are supposed to emanate from fungi and bacteria winch are so minute as to 

 be invisible to the ordinary observer. We should have a State entomologist 

 whose duties "would not confine him to one locality. He should be "on the 

 wing,'' and subject to the call of our State and local societies, or of individ- 

 uals, in all parts of the State where his services might be required to meet and 

 fight the enemy. 



In these days of newspaper supremacy another paper might be considered 

 superfluous. But in looking over the long list of journals published in the 

 west we do not find one which is distinctively horticultural. The agricultural 

 journals of the west devote pages to the ''strain" of some animal monstros- 

 ity, and illustrate the mechanism of some wonderful implement, but the 

 hungry horticulturist finds but few crumbs of comfort in the little corner 

 which is devoted to horticulture. The crop reports in the great newspapers 

 are manipulated to subserve the interests of the "bulls and bears" of trade, 

 but the fruit-grower looks in vain for reliable reports regarding the condition 

 of the fruit crop throughout the country. 



The horticultural interests of the Eastern States and of the Ontario district 

 in Canada, are well subserved by a few local journals. Michigan has, in the 

 yearly report of the State horticultural society, the most useful and compre- 

 hensive report published in the country, but it only comes once a year and 

 cannot be made of sufficient magnitude to contain all of the work done by 

 the State and auxiliary societies. Could a weekly paper be established or 

 adopted which should be conducted by the State agricultural and horticult- 

 ural societies, and contain the full reports of farmers' institutes, local horti- 

 cultural and agricultural societies, together with regular communications by 

 a corps of paid correspondents throughout the State, our societies would have 

 added much to the work done by organizations in the interests of horticulture 

 and agriculture. 



'o' 



J. Brassington, Hart: I think the suggestion of Mr. Brown concerning a 

 State Entomologist is an admirable one, and hope it will be followed up. 

 Even if the State would provide an assistant to Prof. Cook, at the college, 

 with headquarters there, whose special work should be injurious insects and 

 their extermination, a great deal of good might be accomplished. 



Mr. Smith, Benton Harbor : The study of entomology needs persever- 

 ance, industry, time, and thought. "We need Prof. Cook, or some other man 

 having his excellent qualifications, to go about the State and educate the 



