218 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



gronnds. If the children were thus interested in the beautiful in 

 nature, how soon would it be before the good would be made manifest 

 in and around the homes of the neighborhood ? We do not realize to 

 what extent fathers and mothers are influenced by the ideas which 

 liave been impressed on the plastic minds of their children. 



But it is not only aesthetic good which the State should foster by 

 giving its support to horticulture. Indeed, we fear that unless our 

 legislators can be shown that there is material good — good which can 

 be estimated in dollars and cents — to come from money set apart for 

 the use of this Society, but little will be forthcoming. 



What are some of the directions in which this organization could 

 be useful if it had the means ? We must be content with stating but 

 few of them, believing that the intelligence of this audience will appre- 

 ciate their importance and will not be confined to the few suggestions 

 here given. 



It has been estimated that the yearly loss in this State alone from 

 insect depredations is upwards of $60,000,000. Is not here a field of 

 labor and investigation to learn the habits of and devise means of 

 overcoming these enemies? Why is not this Society able to employ 

 an entomologist to serve by his labors, not horticulturists alone, but 

 the whole State? Missouri once had an entomologist in the person of 

 Prof. C. Y. Riley, whose services as such will be valued as long as the 

 art and science of agriculture exists. Yet a short sighted policy caused 

 his loss to our State, although he was transferred to a wider sphere of 

 usefulness by being appointed United States Entomologist. This So- 

 ciety should have the means at its disposal to employ an entomologist, 

 whose duty it should be to study the nature of injurious and beneficial 

 insects, and to keep the farmers and horticulturists who have not the 

 time for the study, informed as to the beast means of preventing their 

 ravages. 



There are the hosts of parasitic fungi to investigate, which there 

 is such pressing necessity. As yet but little is known of their nature, 

 yet think of the millions of loss yearly by rust and smut in grain; rot 

 and mildew in fruits, blight and decay everywhere in the vegetable 

 world, caused by this class of plants. Would it not pay the State to 

 employ some one to labor in this field! 



Then the knowledge of the nature and habits of our birds needs 

 to be better known by the agricultural classes, so that beneficial ones 

 may be protected and others destroyed. 



Thus we might go on to enumerate ways in which this Society 

 might be made of incalculable value to the State, if it only had means 



