198 STATE HOETICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 



now men who hare paid out money from their own pockets, as ordered 

 by the chief of our division over six months ago, and not returned to 

 them yet. The*Horticultural Society has had to pay many bills which 

 the Commission should pay back to them. It is provoking enough to 

 be compelled to give your time without pay, but when you are com- 

 pelled to pay out your own money and have to wait and wait and wait,, 

 it is no joking matter. Every one of these bills should be met and. 

 paid at once. 



Insect Friends and Enemies. 



BY MISS MARY E. MURTFELDT, KIRKWOOD. 



The agriculturists and horticulturists of this great State, as a 

 whole, do not know enough of this estimable lady and the excellent 

 work she is doing and is capable of doing for thein and their indus- 

 tries. We have long thought that were she in the employment of the 

 State, and her whole time devoted to its service, and to the service of 

 those whose money, labor and time are being lost by depredations of 

 the innumerable insects that abound in orchard, garden and farm every- 

 where and always, it would be the means of saving millions of dollars 

 to those who make their living out of the crops produced from the 

 soil. To the address here given we invite the careful attention of the 

 reader, assuring him that it is written by one master of her profession 

 for their good, and not with any vain-glorious idea of appearing in 

 public or in print : 



INSECTS IN WINTER QUARTERS. 



One of the prominent features of the warm season in temperate climes is ttie 

 prevalence of insects. Air, earth and water fairly teem with their diverse and 

 adaptive forms, and the soft air rings with the peculiar notes they furnish to na- 

 ture's symphony. 



In the flower garden, at noon-day, dainty and graceful butterflies by hun- 

 dreds flit from one nectar cup to another, and when refreshed with sweets, whirl in 

 airy dances above our heads and disappear over the fields, to be replaced by others 

 no less lovely and no less agile. Bees, too, large and dignified, velvet-robed and 

 shod with fur, armored wasps and gaily-banded flies, fill the air with a harmony of 

 blended tones that seem to fitly votalize the light and heat. Near bodies of still 

 water, filmy clouds of mosquitos and other gnats rise in the air, the winged atoms 

 circling, dancing, singing, and also, alas! stinging, their close ranks cut ever and 

 anon by swift-darting mosquito hawks or dragon files, which, with raised masks, 

 engulph them by hundreds in their capacious mouths. 



If we cast our eyes downward, we behold gleaming beetles and other preda- 

 ceous forms coursing swiftly over the ground, or slyly lurking at the bottom of pit- 

 falls of their own ingenious construction, ready to pounce upon any unsuspecting 



