238 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



decaying animal or vegetable matter that would load the air with poison- 

 ous germs. Others are predaceous and destroy multitudes of pests 

 that annoy us in person or ravage the products of our fields and gar- 

 dens. Still, others are parasitic, and assist us to an extent which we 

 cannot compute in keeping in check the most pernicious vegetable 

 feeders. The importance of becoming acquainted with these small but 

 serviceable friends of ours can scarcely be over-rated. As yet, in nine 

 cases out of ten, they are looked upon as the depredators and ruth- 

 lessly destroyed. 



One lady last spring told me with great satisfaction that she had 

 found the tiy that laid the eggs from which the plant lice on her roses 

 hatched. She showed me the culprit. It was a lace wing fly, which 

 was busy placing its eggs, each ou its slender stalk, among a colony 

 of the lice. She did not know that its lavae would have speedily 

 cleared the bush of the sap-sucking aphides. Another friend had her 

 gardner busy for days searching for and killing the aligator-shaped 

 larvae of the lady-bug beetles which were helping to save her honey- 

 suckles from destruction. 



We have still much to learn of insect life and its adaptabilities, 

 and now that so much attention is being paid to it we can but hope 

 that not only shall we learn lo conquer our foes but that we may add 

 many species to our list of friends. 



Mary E. Murtfeldt, Kirkwood, Mo. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Dubois — I don't attend this Society very often ; this the first 

 time in about a hundred years, so I hope you will allow me a little 

 time. When horticulture was in need of a great exponent, the Frnit- 

 Orowers' Journal came to the front ; when human rights required a 

 Lincoln, a Lincoln came to the front; when potato bugs and other in- 

 sects became so plentiful that our crops were threatened with exier- 

 mination, then the male entomologist came to the front. They are gen- 

 erally poor in this world's goods, but I hope they have treasure laid 

 up where no bugs can bother. When the'males were about to fail, the 

 lady entomologist came to the front. Of these Missouri has one of 

 the best. I think our male entomologists would not be entirely happy, 

 even in heaven, without a codling- moth or a San Jose scale ; and per- 

 haps the lady entomologist would not be entirely happy without a lady- 

 bug or a silk worm. 



