Winter Meeting. 267 



REPORT OF OBITUARY COMMITTEE. 



To the Missouri State Horticultural Society: 



Your committee with deep sadness, shared by every member of our 

 society, herewith submit for record upon the pages of the minutes, this 

 tribute in memory of the Hon. Charles W. Murtfeldt of Kirkwood, 

 whose recent death took from our ranks and leadership one of our most 

 valuable and beloved members and officers. 



IN MEMORIAM. 



In the death of Charles W. Murtfeldt of Kirkwood, on July 13th 

 of the present year, this society suffered the loss of its oldest member 

 in years and one of the few oldest in association. He has worked 

 with it and for it in its infancy and rejoiced in its rapid growth in 

 membership, in influence, industrial and commercial, and in its present 

 stage of development into an educational institution second to none 

 in the State, and its interests continued to be dear to him to the very 

 last. A brief sketch of his life may, therefore, be of interest to those 

 present at this meeting. 



Charles WilHam Murtfeldt was born in the city of Bueckeburg, 

 the capital of one of the small principalities in the north of Germany, 

 and received practically all his schooling in the grammar schools of 

 that city. In 1833 he emigrated with his parents and only brother to 

 this country, engaging in the mercantile business in New York, after- 

 wards in agriculture, dairying and fruit growing in Illinois. 



In 1844 he followed his father to St. Louis, but soon after, becom- 

 ing fascinated while on a visit to his brother-in-law, with the noble 

 prairies, the beautiful groves and many crystal streams of Northern 

 Illinois, he resolved — all ignorant as he was of the duties and econo- 

 mics of the profession — to give up mercantile business and become a 

 farmer, and in 1850 he acquired a fine and fertile tract of land in 

 Ogle county not far from Rock river, to which he removed his family. 

 For a specialty he chose the dairy business, as marketing butter in 

 St. Louis, to which there was easy transportation by steamboat on the 

 Illinois river, was less expensive of time and money than hauling 

 wheat to Chicago, a distance of ninety miles. His father, ever an 

 enthusiast in flower and fruit growing, about this time disposed of 

 his property interests in St. Louis and joined his son in Illinois, 

 superintending the planting and care of large orchards, grape vines 

 and ornamental shrubbery on both farms, so the subject of this 



