De 



1958 



Mills: From 1858 to 1958 



89 



seen and experienced, were not well un- 

 derstood. (Official entomology was born 

 during this period. The agriculturists felt 

 the need of assistance and cried out to the 

 government for it. 



At the end of the Civil War, the Presi- 

 dent of the young Illinois State Horticul- 

 tural Societ\ , John P. Reynolds, spoke 

 \igorously on the subject at the December 

 19, 1865, meeting of the Society at Nor- 

 mal. In his retiring address, Revnolds 

 (1866:8) said: 



And, first, the appointment of a State 

 Entomologist. The time has been in this 

 State when it required some moral courage 

 for anv one to advocate the appointment and 

 lomprnsation from the treasury of an officer 

 to look after the bugs, but I venture the 

 opinion that there is no subject in which you, 

 as amateur or professional horticulturists, 

 have a more direct, immediate or larger pe- 

 cuniarv interest, than in Entomology — . . . 

 No one who has given the subject any atten- 

 tion will question the truth of the statement 

 that the people of Illinois are to-day many 



millions of iloliars poorer bv reason of 

 noxious insects; nor the additional statement 

 that a very large proportion of this loss 

 might have been averted by the labors of a 

 competent Entomologist with a little means 

 at his disposal. 



In 1866 the Horticultural Society, 

 meeting at Champaign, passed the fol- 

 lowing resolution ( Deyo 1867:58): 



Resohvcd, That we most urgently pray the 

 honorable legislature of our great state to 

 appoint a State Entomologist, that Agricul- 

 turists and Horticulturists may not quite 

 despair of ever overcoming the giant insec- 

 tiforous [j/V] difficulties in the way of suc- 

 cess in their professions. As one eminently 

 qualified, and the highest in his profession 

 in the whole west, we most hopefully mention 

 the name of Benjamin D. Walsh, of Rock 

 Island. 



The Horticultural Society was not 

 alone in this movement. At a meeting of 

 the executive committee of the Illinois 

 State Agricultural Society on January 3, 

 1866, G. W. Minier offered the following 



l^niversity Hall on the l-niversity of Illinois campus. This building, completed in 1874 and 

 razed in 1938, was headquarters for the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History and the 

 Office of State Entomologist for a few years after they were moved from Normal to Urbana. 



