268 State Horticultural Society. 



sketch was enabled to become experimentally familiar with this branch 

 of agricultural industry also. About the same time he assisted in or- 

 ganizing-, and was for several years secretary of the Ogle County 

 Agricultural Society, one of the earliest in the state to hold annual 

 fairs, which had quite extended celebrity for the excellence of their 

 management and the variety and superior quality of the exhibits. He 

 was also a very enthusiastic member of the State Agricultural Society, 

 at which he was a successful exhibitor of dairy, farm and orchard 

 products. 



In the early fifties he made his debut as an agricultural writer, his 

 valuable contributions appearing in the Prairie Farmer of Chicago 

 and the Valley Farmer, "the precursor" of the Rural World, while 

 more distinctly literary articles were welcomed in other leading 

 periodicals of Chicago and other cities. 



In 1863, in order to secure better educational advantages for his 

 family, he exchanged a portion of his farm for a small but well stocked 

 nursery just outside the city limits of Rockford, 111., where for several 

 years he conducted a thriving business and increased his knowledge 

 of horticulture and gardening. During this period his pen was em- 

 ployed in editing an agricultural page in the Rockford Register and 

 for two years a German edition of the Prairie Farmer. In the autumn 

 of 1868 Col. Colman, having been elected Lieutenant-Governor of 

 Missouri, offered the editorship of the Rural World to Mr. Murtfeldt 

 and the latter, accepting the position, removed with his family to St. 

 Louis. 



The following year he was elected Secretary of the State Board 

 of Agriculture, a position retained for three years. In the meantime 

 he had removed his residence to Kirkwood, where, on the five acre 

 ground of the new home, many farm enterprises, on a small scale, 

 were carried on, and much fine fruit and a wealth of beautiful flowers 

 .were annually produced. 



In 1874 he took a position in the LT. S. Sub-treasury of St. Louis, 

 which he continued to fill for thirteen years, keeping up his interest, 

 however, in all matters of the farm and garden and his association 

 with the agricultural and horticultural societies of Missouri and 

 neighboring states. 



In 1890, having retired from active business, he became a special 

 contributor to the agricultural page of the semi-weekly Republic, 

 with the editors and publishers of which he maintained for fourteen 

 years the most cordial relations and his weekly contributions to this 

 journal included much of the best and most varied literary work of 



