The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-12-13
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

I went down to Auburn to attend the Alabama State Horticultural society's annual convention, of which J. H. Me Cary of Birmingham is president.
 l like to foregather with men who have a hobby. I do not know how the old world would have kept on revolving if it had not been for the cranks. They certainly have helped to keep it going.
 If you haven't got side line, my ad- vice is to choose one before you get too old to really enjoy doing something to get you out of the daily routine. It does not make much difference what 1t is Blue china, golf, music, pigs,> gardening, fishing, or even, a cow-but get astride a hobby horse and ride him hard
 Now, at Auburn ran into a bunch of good fellows from all partsHof the state, who had come to talk about vegetables the making of home garden or the more intensive work of trucking, the growing of shrubbery for the adornment of the. grounds, or the planting of fruit trees for ornamental or commercial purposes; with special session on nuts.
 Now, the papers and the talks were for specialists and lot of the termin- ology was wasted on me, just as an out put of theology would have overshot some of them; but in spite of myself was really charmed with an address on Garden Pests" by J.. L. Thomas, who treated bugs in way to make them fascinating little insects in spite of their eabnormal appetities. If you want to know the romance of the insect world just dip into one of Henri Fabres studies.
 t+
 Just to pick up a programme and read Some Chronological Problems might give you a desire to arrange to be out when it was under treatment but if you could hear Dr. w. E. Hinds. the state entomoiogist, treating it you would re- main to find that you had enjoyed real sure enough treat. I slipped back in his department and pulled out some drawers and found one of the best as- sortment of bugs I ever ran across in my life
 I must be at present Just bit bug house" for when arrived home Thursday and went to the food preparedness and marketing dinner at the Southern club and sat down opposite Fred Jones. the president of the Southern Cattlemen' S as- sociation, with whom l toured the state in the interest of the Red Cross bull up and said that ticks were costing the American people s4o.o00000 year. and gave Secretary Houston as his authority.
 This being true it is worth while sit- ting up and taking notice, and getting busy to eradicate the costly insects which are consuming so much beef and per- forating hides and lowering their mar ket value. But I am getting my bugs mixed. Ticks do not come under pr. Hinds' department. They fall to the lot on the animal husbandry section-but to >an amateur "a bug is bug"
 I dare say that one of our "Sammies when attacked by the '.cooties doesn't take time to properly classify the in sect family to which they belong or wait for the proper division to undertake to exterminate them. but begins to do little thinking and scratching on his own account wish I could remember one-half the interesting things which heard Pro- lessor Thomas tell about garden pests. 1t seems that every bng has favorite vegetable. and some of them are dainty feeders while others are voracious and ! eat whatever they light on or crawl upon. T am glad that his talk was to