STATE HOBTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 429 



neglect to beautify the surroundings of the home, and it tends 

 to poverty. The lawn should always be as fresh and green as 

 grass can make it. The vegetable garden will yield its fruits 

 in a few short months. The strawberry bed will give its ripe 

 fruit in fourteen months from planting, and the raspberry only 

 a month later. She knew one farmer who plants a few trees 

 upon the birth of each child, and they are that child's trees. 

 Why should not all do likewise? And then our children would 

 be a generation of horticulturists. Horticulture has always 

 made the world more beautiful, home happier and human life 

 better. 



An interesting discussion followed the reading of the paper. 

 The points brought out were heartily approved, with the sug- 

 gestion that the house plants should be our plants instead of 

 "my wife's plants," 



At this point Chas. W. Garfield, secretary of the Michigan 

 Horticultural Society, and of the American Pomological Society, 

 was introduced, and spoke at length of the workings of the Mich- 

 igan Society, and advocated the encouragement of local and 

 county societies and the establishment of experimental stations. 



The next paper read was on the "Slaughter of the Birds," by 

 Mrs. Ida E. Tillson, of West Salem, in which was shown in a 

 happy manner the blessing of birds to the agriculturist and 

 horticulturist, as their food consisted principally of injurious 

 insects. She alluded to the principal causes that tended to 

 diminish the number of biids and threatened the extermination 

 of some of the most useful species. It was not enough that the 

 electric lights killed them by thousands, and the town boys — 

 "embryo hunters," armed with deadly shot guns — roamed far 

 and wide and from pure wantoness slay all they can find and 

 rob the nests of such as escape, so that in the neighborhood of 

 our villages the quails, larks, blue jays, orioles and other sum- 

 mer songsters can not find a place to rest their weary wing, but 

 the women have added another incentive for their destruction, 

 by adopting a fashion that would shame the barbarians, giving 

 birds a commrercial value; and so great is their demand for them 

 for making their "head gear" hideous that the most secluded 

 resorts no longer afford protection for such as are clothed with 

 bright plumage. Unless this slaughter is stopped disaster is sure 

 to follow. Insects will increase to an alarming extent and de- 

 stroy our crops and our land will become a dreary waste. 



