270 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON ENTOMOLOGY— BENEFICIAL 



INSECTS. 



BY MARY E. MURTFELDT, KIRKWOOD, JIO. 



The agriculturist incurs so much loss and disappointment from the 

 ravages of insects that he is very apt to include all the hexapod tribes 

 in a general sentence of condemnation. Iq so doing, however, he is 

 dealing very unjustly with a large number of species which are more 

 or less directly useful to him. 



It will not be necessary for me to more than allude to the few, 

 though highly important species, whose products have a commercial 

 value, such as ihe silkworm, the honey bee, the cochineal and like 

 insects, and some others less generally known. 



T he value of insects in the fertilization and especially the cross- 

 fertilization of many flowers is a comparatively recent discovery, for 

 which we are mainly indebted to the keen observation and patient in- 

 vestigations of the late Charles Darwin. In this relation it is difficult 

 for us to realize the extent of our obligations to the bees, butterflies, 

 moths and flies that hover, a winged cloud, over our fields and gardens 

 in summer. This discovery gives us the key to peculiarities in floral 

 structure, in which earlier botanists could see no significance, and ac- 

 counts for the presence of the otherwise useless nectar. 



We gain an idea of our dependence on these small agents from 

 such facts as the impossibility of producing the seed of red clover in 

 New Zealand, owing to the circumstance that there was no native in- 

 sect to perform for the flowers the service so perfectly rendered by our 

 humble bee, of bringing the pollen to the stigmas. The soil and cli- 

 mate of the country were entirely favorable to the growth of this val- 

 uable torage plant, but as it required to be continually renewed with 

 imported seed, it could not be cultivated with profit. The difficulty 

 being finally traced to the absence of an insect adapted to the work of 

 fertilizing the ovules, and the humble bee being known to do this in 

 England, many unsuccessful attempts were made to introduce this in- 

 sect into the distant colony. Very recently, however, I learn that a 

 few queen bees have been safely transferred to that far southern clime, 

 and it now remains to be seen whether they will thrive in their new 



