Insects Birds

If I were to estimate the average absolute loss of the farmers of this

country from Insects at $100,000,000 per annum, I should doubtless be

far below the mark. The loss of fruit alone by the devastations of

insects, within a radius of fifty miles from this City, must amount in

value to Millions. In my neighborhood, the Peach once flourished, but

flourishes no more, and Cherries have been all but annihilated. Apples

we e till lately our most profitable and perhaps our most important

product; but the worms take half our average crop and sadly damage what

they do not utterly destroy. Plums we have ceased to grow or expect; our

Pears are generally stung and often blighted; even the Currant has at

last its fruit-destroying worm. We must fight our paltry adversaries

more efficiently, or allow them to drive us wholly from the field.



Now, I have no doubt that our best allies in this inglorious warfare are

the Birds. They would save us, if we did not destroy them. The British

plowman, turning his sod with a myriad of crows, blackbirds, etc.,

chasing his steps and all but getting under his feet in their eager

quest of grubs, bugs, etc., is a spectacle to be devoutly thankful for.

Whenever clouds of birds shall habitually darken our fields in May and

(less notably) throughout the Summer months, we may reasonably hope to

grow fair crops of our favorite Fruits from year to year, and realize

that we owe them to the constant, and zealous, though not quite

disinterested, efforts of our friends, the Birds.



But I do not regard the ravages of Insects as entirely due to the

reckless destruction and consequent scarcity of our Birds. I hold that

their multiplication and their devastations are largely incited by the

degeneracy of our plants caused by the badness of our culture. On this

point, consider a statement made to me, some fifteen or twenty years

ago, by the late Gov. William F. Packer, of Pennsylvania:



"I know (said Gov. P.) the narrow valley of a stream that runs into the

west branch of the Susquehanna, which was cleared of the primitive

forest some forty or fifty years since, and has ever since been

alternately in tillage and grass. A road ran through the middle of it,

dividing it into two narrow fields. A few years ago, this road was

abandoned, and the whole of this little valley, including the road-way,

thrown into a single field, which was thereupon sown to Wheat. At

harvest-time, this remarkable phenomenon was presented: A good crop of

sound grain on the strip four or fire rods wide formerly covered by the

road; while nearly every berry on either side of it was destroyed by the

weevil or midge."



Now I do not infer from this fact that insect ravages are wholly due

to our abuse and exhaustion of the soil. I presume that Wheat and other

crops would be devastated by insects if there were no slovenly, niggard,

exhausting tillage. But I do firmly hold that at least half our losses

by insects would be precluded if our fields were habitually kept in

better heart by deep culture, liberal fertilizing, and a judicious

rotation of crops. I heard little of insect ravages in the wheat-fields

of Western New-York throughout the first thirty years of this century;

but, when crop after crop of Wheat had been taken from the same fields

until they had been well nigh exhausted of their Wheat-forming elements,

we began to hear of the desolation wrought by insects; and those ravages

increased in magnitude until Wheat-culture had to be abandoned for

years. I believe that we should have heard little of insects had Wheat

been grown on those fields but one year in three since their redemption

from the primal forest.



But, whatever might once have been, the Philistines are upon us. We are

doomed, for at least a generation, to wage a relentless war against

insects multiplied beyond reason by the neglect and short-comings of our

predecessors. We are in like condition with the inhabitants of the

British isles a thousand years ago, whose forefathers had so long

endured and so unskillfully resisted invasion and spoliation by the

Northmen that they had come to be regarded as the sea-kings' natural

prey. For generations, it has been customary hereabout to slaughter

without remorse the birds, and let caterpillars, worms, grasshoppers,

etc., multiply and ravage unresisted. We must pay for past errors by

present loss and years of extra effort. And, precisely because the task

is so arduous, we ought to lose no time in addressing ourselves to its

execution.



The first step to be taken is very simple. Let every farmer who realizes

the importance and beneficence of Birds teach his own children and

hirelings that, except the Hawk, they are to be spared, protected,

kindly treated, and (when necessary) fed. They are to be valued and

cherished as the voluntary police of our fields and gardens, constantly

employed in fighting our battles against our ruthless foes. The boy who

robs a bird's nest is robbing the farmer of a part of his crops. He who

traverses a farm shooting and mangling its feathered sentinels

diminishes its future product of Grain and nearly destroys that of

Fruit. The farmer might as well consent that any strolling ruffian

should shoot his Horses or Cattle as his Birds. Begin at home to make

this truth felt and respected, and it will be the easier to impress it

also on your neighbors.



Next, there should be neighborhood or township associations for the

protection of insect-eating birds. We must not merely agree to let them

live--we must cherish and protect them. I believe that very simple cups

or bowls of cast-iron, having each a hole in its centre of suitable

size, that need not cost sixpence each, and could be fastened to the

side of a tree with one nail lightly driven, would in time be adopted by

many birds as nesting strongholds, whence they might laugh to scorn

their predacious enemies. If every harmless bird could build its nest

among us in a place where its eggs would be safe from hawks, crows,

cats, boys, and other robbers, the number of such birds would quickly be

doubled and quadrupled.



And we must summon the law to our aid. Though law can do little or

nothing against stealthy, skulking nest-plunderers, it can help us

materially in our warfare with the cowardly vagabonds who traverse our

fields with musket or rifle, blazing away at every unsuspecting robin or

thrush that they can discover. Make it trespass, punishable with fine

and imprisonment, to shoot on another's land without his express

permission, and the cowardly massacre of the farmers' humble allies

would be checked at once, and, when public sentiment had been properly

enlightened, might, in civilized regions, be arrested altogether.