These rich food beds are not plentiful, and many dealers are compelled to put small oysters on the market. The Bureau of Fisheries has made a study of these food beds, and by using fertilizer, such as farmers use on their land, have been able to make such beds of sea-plants grow where they do not naturally exist. These experiments have been tried only a short time, but the results have been entirely satisfactory, and it is hoped that before long, rich oyster beds may be made to grow in any part of the ocean where oysters will thrive.

In the Great Lakes the fishing is so heavy that it is probable that the supply of perch and white fish would be very low by this time if fish-culture had not been carried on to so great an extent. White fish, lake trout, pike and perch may be hatched in such large numbers as to keep the fisheries up to their present yield.

Another important work of the Fisheries Bureau is to keep up the supply of cod for the great fisheries on the New England coast. For the last twenty years profitable shore cod fishery has been kept up on grounds that had been entirely exhausted before and also where cod had never been found before. At the wharves, government officers from the Fisheries Bureau board the fishing boats when they come in and take the eggs from the fish. These are taken to the government hatchery and either the eggs or the young fish are put back into the sea, and so keep up an unending supply.

Alaska is one of the most important fishing regions of the world. For this entire Territory, the United States paid Russia $7,200,000 and many thought that the money was practically thrown away, since it apparently bought for us nothing but barren, ice-bound shores. But since it became a part of the United States, Alaska has yielded fishery products alone amounting in value to $158,000,000—twenty-two and a half times the price paid. Of this, $49,000,000 came from the fur seal fishery, $86,000,000 from salmon and $23,000,000 from other fish.

About $1,500,000 worth of sponges are now taken from Florida waters each year. Naturally the failure of the industry would be a serious loss to the state. But the natural sponge beds are being rapidly exhausted, and the Bureau of Fisheries is convinced that the continuation of the sponge fisheries must depend on artificial planting. Sponges can be produced from cuttings at a cost much less than that of taking them from the natural beds.

Rhode Island has been successful in cultivating soft-shell clams and in increasing the area of its clam beds.

The Mississippi and its branches are subject to great floods in the early spring and occasionally in summer. After these floods millions of fishes are left in small pools some distance back from the river. These pools gradually dry up; the larger fishes are caught and the smaller ones die. The state and National Fish Commissions are now collecting these fishes in large numbers, and using them to stock ponds and rivers in other parts of the country.

They are used to supply many parts of the West and South and there is much greater demand for them than the Commissions can meet. Not that there is a lack of fish, for millions are left to waste because the Commissions can not distribute them rapidly enough to save them. If large storage ponds could be established to collect and keep the fish during the flood season, so that all the time might be spent in collecting fish during the overflow, and they could be sent out later, the amount of fish saved would be increased many fold.

The fish thus saved are being made to serve another useful purpose. Pearl buttons are made from the shells of mussels or fresh-water clams. This business, which is now worth $5,000,000, can not last many years unless some means of increasing the supply of mussels can be devised.

Now these men, who are always studying new plans, have thought of a wonderful way in which to let the fish help in carrying on this work. They obtain the mussel eggs, and when they are hatched place them in the pools with the fish from the overflowed lands. The tiny mussel larvae attach themselves to the fish and are carried to the rivers and ponds with the fish. Soon they are ready to drop to the bottom and find food for themselves.

In this way 25,000,000 mussels were carried last year to streams where mussels are known to thrive. If these mussel-bearing fish can be obtained by farmers having private fish ponds, the ponds can be drained each year and the mussels gathered, thus adding considerably to the owner's income, and also keeping up the pearl button industry, in addition to the food supply which he gains from the fish.

Enough has been said to show clearly how desirable and how possible it is to conserve and increase our fish supplies. With the cooeperation of all who waste the fish at present, and those who might aid in stocking the streams, we could add greatly to the food supply of the nation at a less cost than in any other way.

REFERENCES

Grazing Lands. Report National Conservation Commission.

Grazing on the Public Lands. (Jastro.) Report Governor's Conference.

The Grazing Lands and Public Forests of Arizona. (Heard.) Report Governor's Conference.

Grazing Problems in the Southwest and How to Meet Them. Bulletin, Dept. of Agriculture, 5c.

Reports of the Bureau of Animal Industry. Dept. of Agriculture.

Distribution of Fish and Fish Eggs. Dept. Commerce and Labor.[B]

[Footnote B: All Bureau and Commission reports are free.]

Reports of the Commission of Fisheries.

National Fisheries Congress.



CHAPTER X

INSECTS

If we look at a watch, we see that one wheel can not move until the one next in order to it moves, and that, in turn, must be set in motion by another wheel. In the same way nature adjusts itself in its various parts. Before man enters a region, the balance is perfect. Plants crowd each other out of the way, the weaker giving place to the stronger; then insects come to destroy them. These insects are destroyed by birds, small mammals or other insects. The birds are killed by animals and other birds, which in turn are the food of larger animals. And so through all nature runs this law of balance; nothing increases in too great a proportion.

But when man comes, he thinks only of his own needs and wishes and begins at once to upset the delicate balance. Year after year, he plants large fields of a single crop, and, calling other plants weeds, because they hinder the growth of his grain, he drives them out entirely. The insects that feed on these plants, finding no food, soon disappear, while the ones which feed on the farmers' crops, finding food so plentiful, are able to increase in great numbers. They increase all the more rapidly because man, not knowing or not caring to know who his real helpers are, has killed and driven away the birds that would feed on them.

In order to readjust matters, he must learn how to destroy the insects, or he can not have crops. Both the plant enemies, the weeds, and the insects are always trying to bring about nature's balance again by driving out the over-abundant field crop, so he must constantly fight them in order to secure his harvest.

In no country is more harm done by insects than in the United States. The losses to live stock and to plants, both growing and stored, resulting from insects are greater than all the expenses of the National Government, including the pension roll and the yearly maintenance of the army and navy.

Immense as is the value of our farm products, it would be much greater if it were not for the work of these insects. Careful calculations indicate that this loss will amount to not less than the enormous sum of $1,100,000,000 annually and probably far more. The loss is usually estimated at ten per cent. of the crop, but often is much heavier than this, and many indirect losses are not taken into account in this table, though we shall speak of them later.

Most insects pass through four stages: (1) the egg; (2) the worm or larvae; (3) the chrysalis, cocoon, or pupa; (4) the full-grown insect or imago. Butterflies, moths and beetles are examples of insects in this last stage.

As eggs, they are, of course, harmless, and during the chrysalis state they lie perfectly inactive and are harmless, but many of them are very destructive when they are worms or larvae, others do most injury in the full-grown state.

The insects that man has most reason to dread are: (1) Plant-lice, tiny insects with soft bodies, usually green. They attach themselves to the stems and leaves of plants and suck their juices, leaving them to wilt and die. They are found on many kinds of plants—on corn, wheat and other grains. They also flourish on garden vegetables and flowers.

(2) Scale insects. These are flat and appear to be only a scale on the stem or fruit. They are usually covered with a hard crust-like covering and are found on trees and bushes. They are usually the color of the bark on which they are found.

(3) Worms and caterpillars are soft-bodied, the bodies being in segments, and either smooth or covered with short bristly hair. They spend nearly all their time in eating, and do immense damage to the foliage of trees and vegetables and to fruit. The adult is a moth or caterpillar. This class is among the farmer's worst insect enemies.

(4) Borers attack trees and tough-stemmed plants. The eggs are laid on the stems, and after hatching, the larvae bore into the stem or under the bark, causing the foliage to wilt and die. We are all familiar with what we call "worm-eaten" wood, with canals that have been eaten by these borers running through it in all directions. This completely ruins some of the best forest trees for lumber, and makes one of the greatest losses of the forests.

(5) Beetles are insects in the adult state. They have hard, shiny wing-covers. Many of the borers are beetles, and there are other varieties which do great damage, though other kinds are useful to man in destroying harmful insects.

(6) Bugs have their mouth parts prolonged into a sharp beak with which they puncture the skin or bark, instead of chewing the leaves, as do beetles. Flies, gnats, and other similar insects do not usually injure vegetation so much as do some other classes of insects, the principal damage being done to fruits; but they have been found to be the cause of some of the most serious diseases in both man and the lower animals.

The Department of Agriculture divides the injuries done by insects into classes according to the products injured, and in the list they place first the injury done to cereal crops.

The insects which damage the corn crop most seriously are the corn-root worm, which feeds on the roots of young corn, causing it to fall over and die, and which sometimes takes the whole corn crop of a large region. The next most important is the boll-worm or ear-worm. Most persons have seen this worm in the ears of sweet corn; ninety ears out of every hundred contain a worm which destroys from one-tenth to one-half the corn. Some years every ear in large regions is infested. In the South the field corn is attacked as badly as the sweet corn, but in the great corn states the injury is much less. Even here, however, the total loss is very great.

Almost equally important is the damage wrought by the chinch-bug, which is also one of the greatest pests in wheat and oats.

Every year in different sections of the country, bill-bugs, wire-worms, cutworms, cornstalk borers, locusts, grasshoppers, corn plant-lice and other insects, destroy millions of bushels of corn.

Of the cereal crops, wheat suffers most from insects. Of the large number of insects that attack wheat, the three important species are the Hessian fly, the chinch-bug and the grain plant-louse or green-bug.

The Hessian fly has been known to destroy as much as sixty per cent. of all the wheat acreage of a state. Fortunately, this damage is done early in the year, so that when whole fields are destroyed they can be replanted with other crops and only the cost of seed and labor is to be counted as a loss. But more often the field is only partly destroyed by the fly; it is not necessary to replant, but the yield is small, often not more than one-third. Some years the loss from the Hessian fly is very heavy, at other times comparatively light, yet there are few years when the loss is less than ten per cent. of the total crop from this insect alone,—which meant last year a loss of 72,500,000 bushels.

The chinch-bug is responsible for the loss of five per cent., or one bushel out of every twenty. It attacks the straw, causing the heads of wheat to fall over and wither away.

The injury done by the green-bug comes just as the wheat begins to ripen, the tiny green creatures attaching themselves in great numbers to the heads of the wheat. Other insects which prey on the wheat crop are grasshoppers, the wheat midge, cutworms and army-worms.

If it were not for the attacks of these various pests the wheat crop would be at least one-fifth larger than it is. Instead of 725,000,000 bushels, it would be 870,000,000; which, with wheat at a dollar a bushel, amounts to a loss of nearly $150,000,000. Further, the world loses all this valuable bread-stuff.

Oats, rye and barley suffer far less than wheat from insect ravages but they are all attacked by the same insects, and on the whole, much damage is done to them each year.

Hay, clover, and alfalfa have their enemies which destroy a considerable part of the crops. The locusts and caterpillars, the army-worms and cutworms are the best known, but the tiny leaf-hoppers, which spring up at every step as we walk across the path or lawn, and the web-worms and grass-worms and grubs which work about the roots of the plants all do their part in lowering the production.

The principal insect enemies of cotton are the cotton boll-weevil, the boll-worm, the cotton red spider, and the cotton-leaf worm. The control of the boll-weevil is considered one of the most serious problems confronting the agricultural men of the country. In the first years after its introduction, it reduced the cotton crop fully fifty per cent., and was the cause, not only of serious loss to the farmers, but of the closing of the cotton mills in New England, of a scarcity of cotton cloth and a decided rise in its price. The boll-weevil is a beetle about a quarter of an inch in length. This little beetle eats into the heart of each boll, which soon falls to the ground.

The cotton-leaf worm formerly caused heavy damage, as much as $20,000,000 to $30,000,000 a year, but the loss has been greatly reduced by the war which farmers have waged against it. It is still estimated at from $5,000,000 to $10,000,000.

The boll-worm is chiefly destructive in the Southwest and does damage to the extent of $12,000,000.

All in all no article of commerce is more seriously affected by insect ravages than cotton, on account of its necessity, and the fact that it can be raised only in certain regions.

Tobacco is one of the principal crops in several states and it suffers heavily from insect damage. The large, showy tobacco-worm and the tiny tobacco-thrips cause serious injury to the leaves.

Sugar-cane has its insect enemies which take on an average one stalk out of every ten raised in this country, and reduce the crop in the same proportion.

The cranberry is another valuable commercial plant that has been greatly affected by an insect known as the cranberry fruit worm, but by spraying, growers have been able to reduce the damage from sixty per cent. down to fourteen per cent.

Garden vegetables suffer more than anything else from insects. Potatoes are attacked by two species of insects, both destructive unless held in check. One is the reddish brown blister-beetle. The eggs are laid on the ground, and do not become adult insects until the second year. The other is the striped Colorado beetle, the eggs of which are laid on the under side of the leaves, and develop into adults in a short time. Two broods of this beetle develop in a single season. Thus it may be seen that the two are entirely different, though they are often supposed to be the same. The Colorado beetle, by the immense damage it was doing to a necessary food crop, first led to a regular method of fighting insects in this country. This potato-bug is not feared as it was in the past, since farmers have learned to control it in a great measure, but they have only been able to lessen the evil, never to drive it out completely.

Other insects that destroy garden vegetables are the well-known green cabbage-worm, the harlequin cabbage-bug, the cabbage hairworm, the asparagus-beetle, the squash-bug, the squash-vine borer, the striped cucumber or melon beetle, the melon aphis, the corn boll-worm, the cornstalk borer and many others.

In addition to these insects that attack special plants, all vegetables are preyed on by the grub-worm, the cutworm, the aphis and various tiny hoppers.

The grub-worms which work about the roots of plants are, in the adult state, the June-bugs or cock-chafers which fly about our lights in the spring and early summer, and which themselves do considerable damage by eating leaves of trees and bushes.

Orchards and small fruits suffer heavily from insect pests, both on account of the direct loss and on account of the expensive treatment. There are several hundred insects which ravage fruit trees, attacking the roots, trunk, foliage and fruit.

Among these are the scales, of which there are many species, but of which the most widely known and dreaded is the San Jose scale, so called because San Jose, California, was its starting place in America. It is the only one of the scales which, if not checked, will, in two or three years, completely destroy the tree on which it feeds. It attacks the citrus fruits, orange, lemon, grape-fruit, and the apple, pear, and peach as well as small fruits, particularly currants.

Among the many varieties that do serious damage are the black olive scale, plum scale, hickory scale, locust scale, frosted black scale, red oak scale, the cottony maple scale, greedy scale and oyster shell scale.

The woolly aphis injures the roots of our fruit trees; the trunk and limb borers, the peach tree borer, the apple borer, all stand ready to assail the life of the entire tree. The various leaf worms attack the life of the tree also. The grape-leaf skeletonizer eats every particle of green from the leaves, leaving only the veins. The canker-worms and the destructive tent-caterpillars also cause the death of many fruit trees.

Of insects which attack the fruit, the list is long. The codling-moth of the apple causes a greater money loss than any other enemy of fruits. Various estimates of the loss have been made, and in general it is believed that it causes the loss of one-fourth to one-half of the apple crop of the United States each year.

The plum-curculio attacks nearly all stone fruits. Its natural food plant is probably the native wild plum, and the plum continues to be its favorite food, consequently this fruit suffers most from the attacks of the insect. In years of short crops very little fruit remains on the tree to ripen. But peaches, apricots and cherries also suffer heavily, and apples and pears in a less degree.

The insects which injure the hardwood forest trees are principally the leaf-eaters, such as the gypsy and brown tail moths, which have almost stripped the New England shade trees, and done great damage to the forests; the elm leaf beetles and the numerous borers, both beetles and grubs, which from eggs laid in or just beneath the bark, hatch into larvae which burrow into the wood, destroying its usefulness for lumber. Among the borers which do most injury in destroying valuable timber are the hickory-bark beetle, the bark-boring grubs which kill oak, chestnut, birch and poplar trees, the locust borer, the chestnut timber-worm and the Columbian timber beetle.

All these represent the loss from insects to the growing product; but when it is stored, there is seemingly no less danger of attack by a different class of insects. These include grain weevils and beetles, flour-moths, the small fruit and vinegar flies, buffalo-moths and dozens of others.

After these comes the loss to man and animals from insects. The cattle tick alone, through the dreaded Texas fever, causes a loss of from $10,000,000 to $35,000,000 in various years. The ox warble also preys on cattle and causes a loss of probably $3,000,000 more. The buffalo-gnats, gadflies, and other flies do on the whole a large amount of damage each year.

Man has only discovered in recent years how serious a factor in his own health as well as comfort, is the insect life about him. This subject is more fully treated under the subject of health, so for the present we need only say that flies, mosquitos and other insects are supposed to cause some of our most serious diseases, and to be the indirect cause of the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars and many human lives each year.

Having thus summed up the damage done by insects, let us see what may be done to prevent their spread and if possible drive out the most harmful species entirely. Unfortunately, that seems almost impossible; so far all man's efforts have only resulted in saving a larger or smaller proportion of the various crops each year.

In insect control we turn first to the natural means of destruction. Chief among these means are birds,—of which we will speak in another chapter,—snakes and toads.

Toads live entirely on insects and catch large quantities of them. It is estimated that a single toad is worth almost twenty dollars a year in a field or garden. English gardeners are said to pay high prices for them and to keep as many as possible in their gardens. Toads will eat almost any kind of insect, are absolutely harmless, and should be carefully protected.

There is one class of insects which, so far from being an enemy to man, combines with him to kill the harmful insects. Among these are the black beetles which feed on cutworms and other larvae which injure the roots of plants. Lady-bird beetles destroy large numbers of plant-lice, and the Asiatic lady-bird has been found to be the natural destroyer of the San Jose scale. These little insects are now being hatched in this country, and it is hoped through them to stamp out the pest. A number of larger insects prey on the smaller ones.

Other insects, such as the Hessian fly, the green-bug or spring grain aphis, the army-worm and various species of grasshoppers are killed by tiny parasitic insects whose eggs are laid in the bodies of the larger insects, but which, after being hatched, feed on them.

To these natural methods of control man has added others. Cultivation is one of these methods. As insects flourish when given an unusually large amount of food of a particular kind, and starve when that food is taken away from them, so rotation of crops proves to be one of the best means of getting rid of those insects which can not travel far for their food. Farmers who practise rotation of crops are much less troubled with insects that injure the roots of plants than those who do not.

One of the best means of preventing damage from the Hessian fly is to sow a narrow strip of wheat all around the edges of the field several weeks before the main crop is to be sowed. The flies will gather in this strip and lay all their eggs in the early wheat. Just before the main crop is sowed, the narrow strip is plowed up and thoroughly harrowed and the larvae perish for want of food.

The best known means of getting rid of grasshoppers is to destroy the eggs. This should be done by plowing and harrowing all roadsides, ditch banks, uncultivated fields and grassy margins around fields in the fall or winter.

Fall harrowing and deep spring plowing will prevent many of the bugs and beetles which spend the larval state in the ground from hatching. This method will also destroy the plum-curculio in orchards.

In attempting to control the boll-weevil of the cotton fields, it has been found that the best method to pursue is the simple one of planting the crop very early, so that the cotton passes the danger stage before the insects emerge, and removing all the plants in the fall.

Worms that infest fruit can be checked for the following year by fall plowing in the orchard and by destroying the decayed fruit as it falls. The farmer who lets his decayed fruit lie on the ground is preparing for a heavy crop of insects to eat his fruit the following summer.

Fruit and forest trees are both protected by a burlap band or a band of "sticky" fly-paper placed around the tree, to prevent insects from crawling up.

The use of poison in destroying insects is now the one most generally and successfully employed by farmers and fruit growers.

Poisons may be liquid or dry. The liquid is made by mixing with water, and for large plants and trees is put on with a spray or force-pump that carries the poison to every part of the plant.

Some insects, such as beetles, caterpillars and grasshoppers, chew the leaves or stems of plants, and the poison may be applied to their food; but others, such as plant-lice, scale insects and all bugs suck the juice, usually from the stem or bark. Poisons must be applied to the insect itself to be effectual in this case.

These are some of the insect poisons most in use:

Paris green, which will kill all insects that chew the leaves, may be used in small quantities in gardens by mixing one-half teaspoonful to a gallon of water, or in large quantities with one pound to one hundred and fifty or two hundred gallons of water.

White hellebore is used to destroy currant worms and is usually dusted on dry.

Pyrethrum is used as a spray, mixing one ounce to two gallons of water, to destroy cabbage-worms and many other garden insects. If the dry pyrethrum powder is blown from a bellows into a tightly closed room, it is said to destroy all the flies.

Bordeaux mixture is made by dissolving four pounds of copper sulphate in hot water and mixing with an equal quantity of a solution made by mixing four pounds of lime with water. This is then mixed with fifty gallons of water. Paris green is sometimes added. This mixture is largely used in orchards and for destroying insects on a large scale. It is also useful for curing diseases of plants.

An excellent spray for orchards both for removing fungous diseases and scale insects is a home-made lime-and-sulphur solution. Enough for spraying a large orchard is prepared as follows:

Add three gallons of boiling water to fifteen pounds of lime. Then add ten pounds of sulphur and three gallons more of hot water. Allow this to boil about twenty minutes in its own heat, then add enough water to make fifty gallons of the mixture. Dilute with water in the proportion of one part of the solution to seventy-five of water.

Small quantities are made by using a fractional part of this recipe.

Whale-oil soap dissolved in water and used as a spray is an effective remedy for the San Jose scale.

Kerosene emulsion is used to kill the insects which suck the juices of plants and trees. It is made by mixing a half-pound of hard soap with one gallon of hot water and stirring into it, so as to mix thoroughly, two gallons of kerosene oil. This may be kept on hand for use, and is mixed with ten parts of water to one of the emulsion.

For use in large orchards force-pumps operated by compressed air and drawn by two horses are used. The spraying should be done as soon as the blossoms drop, and many orchards are sprayed three times in a season, but the work should never be done while the trees are in blossom. Vegetables should be sprayed many times through the season.

A careful study of these methods of control, adapted to the various plants and the insects which prey on them, with the natural enemies of insects encouraged and protected, would go far to prevent the wide-spread and serious damage now affecting our crops, our vegetables, our orchards, and our forests.

REFERENCES

Circulars of the Bureau of Entomology. Dept. of Agriculture. List furnished on application.

Annual Loss Occasioned by Destructive Insects. Yearbook 1904.[C]

[Footnote C: Some of the Yearbooks of the Dept. of Agriculture contain very instructive reports on Insects and on Birds. Reprints on various subjects have been made from them which are available in pamphlet form, or the entire Yearbook may be had in many cases.]

Value of Insect Parasitism to the American Farmer. Yearbook 1907.

House Flies. Dept. of Agriculture. Bulletin 71.

The Grasshopper Problem. Bulletin 84.

The Boll-Weevil Problem. Bulletin 344.

The Most Important Step in the Control of the Boll-Weevil. Bulletin 95.

The San Jose Scale. Yearbook 1902.

The Plum-Curculio. Bulletin 73.

The Apple Codling-Moth. Bulletin 41. Price 20c.

The Gipsy Moth and How to Control It. Bulletin 275.

The Brown-tail Moth and How to Control It. Bulletin 264.

The Spring Grain Aphis or Green-Bug. Bulletin 93.

The Army-Worm. Bulletin 4.

The Hessian Fly. Bulletin 70.

The Chinch-Bug. Bulletin 17.

The Principal Household Insects of the U. S. Bulletin 4.

Insects Affecting Domestic Animals. Bulletin 5.



CHAPTER XI

BIRDS

Birds give us pleasure in three ways: by their beauty, by their song and by their usefulness in destroying animals, insects or plants which are harmful to man.

But although they are among man's best friends they have been greatly misunderstood, so that to the many natural enemies that are constantly preying on birds, we must add the warfare that man himself wages on them, and the cutting down of their forest homes. This work of bird destruction has gone on until all the best species are greatly reduced in numbers and some species have been almost entirely driven out.

To see how serious a matter this is we must study the food habits of birds, and we shall find that although the different species eat a large variety of food, in almost every case their natural food is something harmful to man.

The large American birds, the eagles, hawks, owls and similar kinds, are called birds of prey because they feed on small birds and animals. Some of these are of the greatest benefit to the farmer, while others are altogether harmful. Another large class of birds lives almost entirely on injurious insects and this class is entitled to the fullest care and protection from the farmer.

Still another class lives largely on fruits, wild or cultivated, and on seeds, which may be either the farmer's most valuable grains, or seeds of the weeds that would choke out the grain.

It can not be denied that birds often do serious damage through their food habits; but the great mistake that has been made in man's treatment of birds has been in hastily deciding that if birds are seen flitting about fields of grain they are destroying the crop. A better knowledge of their food habits will lead to proper measures for destroying the harmful kinds and protecting the useful ones.

Successful agriculture could hardly be practised without birds, and the benefit to man, though amounting each year to millions of dollars, can hardly be estimated in dollars and cents, since it affects so closely the size of our crops, the amount of timber saved for use in manufactures, and even the health of the people.

Here again we see the careful balancing that runs through nature; how carefully each thing is adjusted to its work. Naturally the balance between birds, insects and plants would remain true, no one increasing beyond its proper amount. But when man begins to destroy certain things, and to cultivate others, this balance is seriously disturbed. The birds that destroy weed seeds being killed, weeds flourish in such vast numbers as to drive out the cultivated crops. The birds which destroy mice, moles, gophers, etc., being killed, these animals become a nuisance and cause serious losses. If insect-destroying birds are driven out, the farmer will be at the mercy of the insects unless he employs troublesome and expensive methods of getting rid of them. Certain favorable conditions cause large numbers of birds to gather in a small region and they become a pest. Very careful observation has shown that in nearly every case the favorite food of the birds is something which is not valued by man, and if this food is provided, the farm grains and fruits will not be seriously molested.

Few birds are altogether good, still fewer are altogether bad; most species are of great benefit, even if at the same time they do some harm. Some birds do serious damage at one season, and much good at another. The most notable example of this is the bobolink, which in northern wheat fields is loved no less for his merry song than for the thousands of weed seeds and insects he destroys; while in the South he is known as the reed-bird or rice-bird, the most dreaded of all foes to the rice crop.

Flying down on the fields by hundreds of thousands these birds often take almost the entire crop of a district. The yearly loss to rice-growers from bobolinks has been estimated at two million dollars.

If crows or blackbirds are seen in large numbers about fields of grain they are generally accused of robbing the farmer, but more often they are busily engaged in hunting the insects that without their help would soon have destroyed his crop; and even if they do considerable damage at one season they often pay for it many times over.

Whether a bird is helpful or the reverse, in fact, depends entirely on the food it eats and often even farmers who have been familiar with birds all their lives do not know what food a bird really eats. As an example of the misunderstanding that is often found in regard to birds, when hawks are seen searching the fields and meadows, or owls flying about the orchards in the evening, the farmer always supposes that his poultry is in danger, when in reality the birds are quite as likely to be hunting for the animals which destroy grain, produce, young trees, and eggs of birds.

In order to correct such mistaken ideas the Department of Agriculture has made a most careful and accurate study of the habits of birds, and it is the results of these observations that are recorded here.

Field workers from this Department who have observed the habits of the principal birds that live among men, have watched them all day and from one day to another as they fed their little ones, and, to be more certain of their facts, they have examined the stomachs of hundreds of birds, both old and young, to learn exactly what each bird had eaten. In this way they have proved absolutely that many species that are supposed to eat chickens, or fruit or grain, in reality never touch them, but are among the farmer's best friends.

Among other things they have learned that while they are feeding their young, birds are especially valuable on a farm. Baby birds require food with a large amount of nourishment in it that can be easily digested. Almost all young birds have soft, tender stomachs, and must be fed on insects; as they grow older, the stomach or gizzard hardens and is capable of grinding hard grain or seeds. The amount of food required by the baby birds is astonishing. At certain stages of their growth they require more than their own weight in insects. And the young birds are to be fed just at the season that insects do the most injury to growing crops of grain and young fruit and vegetables.

Birds vary so much in the kind of food eaten, not only by different varieties of the same species, but by the same birds at different seasons, that it is necessary to make a careful study of each bird to know whether, if he is sometimes caught eating cultivated fruit and grains, he helps in other ways enough to pay for it.

When insects are unusually abundant, birds eat more than at other times and confine themselves more strictly to an insect diet, so that at such times the good they do is particularly valuable.

Birds of prey may do harm in a particular place, because in that region mice, rabbits and other natural food are scarce, and they are driven to feed on things that are useful to man, while in places where their natural food is plentiful the same birds are altogether helpful.

In the same way, birds which naturally eat weed seeds frequently find these almost altogether lacking where the farms are most carefully cultivated, but in their place are fields of grain whose seed also furnishes them desirable food. Is it any wonder, then, that, their natural food being taken from them, they turn to the cultivated crops? The fruit eating birds seem always to choose the wild fruits, but where these are not to be had they enter the orchards and soon become known as enemies of the farmer.

A careful examination of the harm done by birds leads to the belief that the damage is usually caused by a very large number of one species of birds living in a small area. In such cases so great is the demand for food of a particular kind that the supply is soon exhausted, and the birds turn to the products of the field or orchard. The best conditions exist when there are many varieties of birds in a region, but no one variety in great numbers, for then they eat many kinds of insects and weeds, and do not exhaust all the food supply of one kind. Under such circumstances, too, the insect-eating birds would find plenty of insects without preying on useful products, and the insects would be held in check, so that the damage to crops would be slight.

The following are examples of the food eaten by birds and the good that they thus accomplish to man:

During the outbreak of Rocky Mountain locusts in Nebraska, a scientific observer watched a long-billed marsh wren carry thirty locusts to her young in an hour and the same number was kept up regularly. At this rate, for seven hours a day, a nest-ful of young wrens would eat two hundred and ten locusts a day. From this he calculated that the birds of eastern Nebraska would destroy daily nearly 163,000 locusts.

A locust eats its own weight in grain a day. The locusts eaten by the baby birds would therefore be able to destroy one hundred and seventy-five tons of crops, worth at least ten dollars a ton, or one thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars.

So we see that birds have an actual cash value on the farm. The value of the hay crop saved by meadow-larks in destroying grasshoppers has been estimated at three hundred and fifty-six dollars on every township thirty-six miles square.

An article contributed to the New York Tribune by an official in the Department of Agriculture estimated the amount of weed seeds annually destroyed by the tree sparrow in the state of Iowa on the basis of one-fourth of an ounce of seed eaten daily by each bird. Supposing there were ten birds to each mile, in the two hundred days that they remain in the region, we should have a total of 1,750,000 pounds, or eight hundred and seventy-five tons, of weed seed consumed in a single season by this one species in the one state. In a thicket near Washington, D. C. was a large patch of weeds where sparrows fed during the winter. The ground was literally black with the seeds in the spring but on examining them it was found that nearly all had been cracked and the kernels eaten. A search was made for seeds of various weeds but not more than half a dozen could be found, while many thousands of empty seed-pods showed how the birds had lived during the winter.

In no place are birds more important than in the forests, where they save hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of valuable timber each year. In forests there can be no rotation of crops and no cultivation, and spraying, which keeps down the insect pests in the orchard, is impossible here because of the expense. It would not pay to spray two or three times a year a crop of timber that requires a lifetime to grow. So in the forests the owner must depend entirely on birds for his protection. How great the destruction of our forests would be is shown by the fact that the damage at present is estimated at $100,000,000, in spite of the fact that a vast army of birds is working tirelessly, summer and winter, to devour the insects! The debt of the forester to the birds can hardly be estimated.

A full variety of birds will thoroughly protect a farm and orchard. The sparrows will destroy the weed seeds; the hawks and kites, flying by day, will catch the meadow mice and other small mammals, and the owls will pounce on those that venture forth at night. Of the insect-eating birds, the larks, wrens, thrushes and sparrows search the ground for worms, eggs and insects under leaves and logs everywhere. The nuthatches, vireos, warblers and creepers search every part of the tree, while the woodpeckers tap beneath the bark for grubs and worms. The fly-catching birds catch their insect food on the wing among the trees and branches, and, last of all, the swallows skim high in the air and catch the few insects that rise high above the tree-tops.

Thus each family has its part of the work and the good they do is almost too great to calculate. Without this check it would be impossible for any green thing to flourish. So vast an amount of food is required to feed the great army of insects that the task would be impossible in any other way.

A brief description of some of the common birds and their food habits is given here that farmers may know their friends, and that people everywhere may learn to protect the useful birds and drive out the few that do the mischief.

All of these observations have been made by field workers from the Department of Agriculture, and no statement has been made that has not been proved by the examination of many bird stomachs at different seasons.

Highest of all in the list come the bluebirds. They are among the most beautiful of our native birds, with their bright blue coats and soft red breasts. They are sweet singers, and are among the first to return in the spring to tell us of the return of summer. In addition to this they have many good habits and absolutely no bad ones. More than three-fourths of their food consists of insects,—beetles, grasshoppers and caterpillars. The remainder is weed seeds and fruit, but there were no reports of cultivated fruits being eaten by bluebirds. On the contrary they eat the most undesirable of the wild fruit, chokeberry, pokeberry, Virginia creeper, bitter-sweet and sumac, as well as large quantities of ragweed seeds. Other birds are equally useful but none combines usefulness with so much beauty and sweetness of song.

The tiny wrens are another class of wholly useful birds. Their food consists almost entirely of insects with a very little grass-seed. They search every tree, shrub, and vine for caterpillars, spiders and grasshoppers.

Sparrows are almost equally useful. The tree sparrow, song sparrow, chipping sparrow, field sparrow and snowbird or junco are all great weed-seed destroyers. Many of them remain throughout the winter, when they feed entirely on the seeds of weeds. Each bird eats at least a quarter of an ounce of seeds per day, and they are often found by thousands in a region. At least a half dozen varieties of birds are feeding in the same ratio all over the country, reducing the crop of next year's weeds. During the summer they turn to a diet composed partly of insects and here again they help the farmer by eating the weevils, leaf-beetles, grasshoppers, bugs and wasps that infest his crops.

The various species of swallows rank high as insect-eating birds. The tree, bank, cliff and barn swallows and the purple martins all eat small beetles, mosquitoes, flying ants and other high-flying insects, and the number destroyed is almost beyond our power to imagine.

The most important service performed by swallows, however, is in the South, where they migrate for the winter. There they feed largely on the cotton boll-weevil, one of the most destructive of all insects, as we have seen. The Department of Agriculture is urging strongly that farmers in the North protect the swallows so that they may winter in the South in large numbers to feed on the boll-weevil, which, if allowed to flourish, will affect not only the southern planters, but every user of cotton goods, and every one who profits in any way by the sale and manufacture of cotton goods.

Among swallows, the beautiful and graceful purple martin is most worthy of protection. Both North and South, the swallows are among the most useful of all birds to the farmer and fruit grower, and should be protected from English sparrows and encouraged in every possible way.

The seventeen species of titmice which inhabit the United States, and many of which remain all winter, are all insect eaters to a great extent, eating large quantities of tent-caterpillars, moths and their eggs, weevils, including the cotton boll-weevil, plum-curculio, ants, spiders, plant-lice, bugs and beetles. They also eat small seeds, particularly those of the poison ivy.

The bush-tit feeds largely on insects that destroy grape-vines and on the black olive scale. Other species eat most of the scales which infest fruit and forest trees.

The rose-breasted grosbeak, while it eats a few green peas, is to be classed among the wholly beneficial birds, for it is the great natural destroyer of the Colorado potato beetle. In fact, it eats enough potato-bugs at a single meal to pay for all the peas eaten in a whole season. One family of grosbeaks, nesting near the field, will keep an entire patch cleared of potato-bugs throughout the season. In some parts of the country the grosbeak feeds largely on the plum scale, the hickory scale, the locust and oak scales and on the tulip scale, which is very destructive to shade trees. The black grosbeak is another variety that deserves encouragement in every way, for it eats the chrysalis of the codling-moth that is so serious a foe to our apple crop. It eats also many other injurious insects, such as wire-worms, many of the most harmful of beetles, caterpillars, and scales.

Among the most useful birds, we must mention the phoebe, which nests near houses and lives almost entirely on harmful insects which it catches on the wing.

Night hawks eat flying ants in great numbers, as many as eighteen hundred having been found in a single stomach. They eat insects that fly by night and are classed among our most useful birds.

Quails are almost unequalled as weed-destroyers. Throughout the fall and winter they spend the time destroying weed seeds. In summer they eat Colorado potato beetles, chinch-bugs, cotton boll-weevils, squash-beetles, grasshoppers and cutworms. The mother quail, with her family of twelve to twenty little ones, patrols the fields thoroughly for insects. Quails should be prized as among a farmer's most valuable helpers and protected at all seasons.

Similar in the good work it does is the meadow-lark. Grasshoppers, caterpillars and cutworms form a large part of its diet, and its vegetable food consists of weed seeds or waste grain.

King-birds are useful in protecting poultry and song birds from hawks, and are also great fly catchers, taking many beetles on the wing.

Doves eat great quantities of seeds of harmful weeds. They also eat some grain, but almost altogether after the crop has been gathered. Old damaged corn and single grains scattered along the roads are eaten, but there is no complaint of doves doing injury to fields of growing grain.

The orioles are beautiful, are sweet singers, and no exception can be taken to their food habits. Caterpillars are their principal article of food, but plant-and bark-lice, spiders and other insects are also eaten. Orioles do not eat much vegetable food. They have been accused of eating peas and grapes, but there seems no evidence to show that this habit is general.

The food habits of cuckoos render them very desirable, since they eat hairy caterpillars, particularly tent-caterpillars, for which they seem to have an especial fondness, fall web-worms and locusts, besides other injurious insects, but they are accused of bad habits in relation to other birds, and can therefore hardly be classed among the wholly useful birds. Warblers and vireos are among the most helpful birds in an orchard, devouring large quantities of insects.

There is no class of birds concerning which it is more necessary that the farmer should be well informed, than the hawks and owls, since some of them are wholly good, and of the greatest possible benefit to him and the fruit grower, while others are extremely harmful in their food habits.

The harmful varieties live almost entirely on poultry and wild birds, and include the goshawk or partridge hawk and the Cooper hawk, which is a true chicken-hawk and should be recognized by all farmers at sight.

The goshawk and chicken-hawk, in the amount of damage done, far exceed all other birds of prey. The sharp-shinned hawk rarely attacks full-grown poultry, but preys heavily on young chickens and song birds. In fact, it is known to eat nearly fifty species of our most useful birds. There is no question that these birds are a serious pest and should be destroyed, but they should not be confused with other members of the family which are among the best friends that a farmer has in keeping his farm clear of small enemies.

Owls and hawks eat the same class of food, the hawks flying by day and the owls by night. Owls remain North in winter, while hawks fly farther south.

The small species of both eat large quantities of insects, such as grasshoppers, locusts and beetles. The larger ones are the farmer's great protection against the meadow-mouse, the most destructive of all animals to farm crops. It tunnels under fields and eats the roots of grass, grain and potatoes, eats large amounts of grain and does even more damage by girdling young trees in orchards. Rabbits injure trees in the same way, often during the winter ruining an entire orchard in this manner.

Squirrels, ground-squirrels, gophers, prairie-dogs, and other small animals do serious damage in the course of a year on almost every farm.

The rough-leg hawk feeds entirely on meadow-mice, but if the supply fails, it eats mice, rabbits and ground-squirrels, but in no instance attacks birds. Its cousin, the ferruginous rough-leg, lives largely on ground-squirrels, rabbits, prairie-dogs and pouched gophers. This species also never attacks birds, and neither do any of the four members of the kite family.

Another large class of birds,—the marsh-hawk, Harris hawk, red-tailed hawk, red-shouldered hawk, short-tailed hawk, white-tailed hawk, Swainson hawk, short-winged hawk, broad-winged hawk, Mexican black hawk, Mexican goshawk, sparrow-hawk, barn-owl, long-eared owl, short-eared owl, great gray owl, barred owl, western owl, Richardson owl, screech-owl, snowy owl, hawk-owl, burrowing owl, pigmy owl and elf owl—live mostly on destructive mammals, insects, frogs and snakes, but they eat some birds and some of them occasionally catch poultry. Young ones do much more harm than the full-grown ones, probably because they find poultry and birds easier to obtain than other food. These species all do great good on the farm and in the orchard and if their natural food is plentiful and the number of the birds of prey limited, they should be allowed to remain, even though they occasionally do harm; but they can not be allowed to increase greatly in a region without becoming a nuisance.

In another class the golden and bald eagles, pigeon and Richardson hawks, prairie falcon and great horned owl do considerable harm, and the good and bad qualities about balance. In a poorly settled region, where there is plenty of natural food, a few of these birds will bring forth little complaint, but in a section where there are few ground-squirrels, prairie-dogs, gophers, rabbits and woodchucks, where poultry is raised extensively, and useful birds are numerous they will do great harm and farmers will usually want to keep them down entirely.

The gyrfalcons, duck-hawks, sharp-shinned hawk, Cooper hawk and goshawk live almost entirely on food that is desired by man,—poultry, game birds and many varieties of our best insect-destroying birds, and they eat almost nothing that is harmful to man. The numbers of these birds should be reduced as much as possible: but in general it may be said that the birds of prey—the hawks and owls—are among the most, if not the most, valuable birds that are engaged in helping the farmer by destroying the natural enemies of agriculture.

Among the smaller birds which do much good, but of which complaints are made because they eat some fruit and grain are the woodpeckers, including the flickers, cedar-birds, robins, cat-birds, thrashers, crows and blackbirds.

The woodpeckers are the great natural protection of the forests by waging constant warfare on the wood-boring insects and ants beneath the bark where no other birds can reach them. They are equally useful in an orchard except that here man may only at great trouble and expense partly hold them in check. Downy woodpeckers are also great eaters of scales, and the fruit grower need not begrudge the red-headed woodpecker a meal of cherries or apples, especially as it will usually be found that it is the wormy fruit that is attacked.

The flicker or gold-winged woodpecker lives largely on ants, of which he eats immense quantities, seeking them not only in the trees but on the ground.

Robins are so well loved for their cheery song, for their friendliness to man, and their red breasts coming as a touch of color in returning spring, that except where they are present in great numbers, there is little complaint of the fruit they eat, even without taking into account the good work they accomplish as insect eaters. In fact only four per cent. of a robin's food is cultivated and a little less than half of it is wild fruit not prized by man. The remaining half consists of caterpillars, beetles, spiders, snails and earth-worms.

The cat-bird is also known as a cherry-eater and he frequently helps himself from strawberry and raspberry patches. He eats a larger proportion of cultivated fruit than the robin, but about twice as much wild fruit, including the sumac and poison ivy. The cat-bird eats many injurious insects, which constitute only a little less than half of his food.

The cedar-bird is sometimes called the cherry bird, and is accused of being a great cherry-stealer, but an examination of stomachs showed that only nine birds out of one hundred and fifty-two had eaten any cherries and that cherries formed only five per cent. of the food of these few. There is even evidence that this bird prefers wild fruits, which form its principal food though it eats a few insects.

The crows and blackbirds are accused of many bad habits, such as pulling up young corn, destroying large quantities of grain and injuring much fruit by pecking holes in it which are later entered by insects. Crows eat fruit to some extent, but the greater part of it is wild. Both crows and blackbirds are accused of robbing the nests of other birds. Blackbirds are injurious chiefly because they gather in such large flocks that when they descend on a field they can eat a large amount of grain in a short space of time. The greatest good accomplished by the blackbird is in the spring when it follows the plow in search of grub-worms, of which it is extremely fond. It also does much good in destroying insects in the early summer, the young birds being fed almost entirely on insect food until they are grown.

Of the crow, Doctor Merriam, who is at the head of this branch of work in the Department of Agriculture, says, "Instead of being an enemy of the farmer, as is generally believed, the crow is one of his best friends and the protector of his crops. True, during corn-planting time, the crow's bill is turned against the farmer during one month, and one month only is he his enemy. But during the other eleven months the crow is really working overtime for him. It eats thousands upon thousands of destructive insects and bugs every week, and when it comes to feeding its young, gives them a diet composed almost entirely of worms and insects that prey upon the crops."

Another government report says, "The crow should receive much credit for the insects which it destroys. In the more thickly settled parts of the country it probably does more good than harm, at least when ordinary precautions are taken to protect young poultry and newly planted corn from it." It is probable that in many parts of the country some farmers will find it desirable to reduce the number of crows and blackbirds on their farms.

The brown thrasher is a beautiful singer and eats many insects, mostly injurious. It eats some cultivated fruits. It also eats a small amount of newly planted corn, but at the same time clears the field of May beetles. Altogether it is a useful bird but not one of the highest benefit.

There are a few species of birds of which but little good can be said, and which it may be desirable to attempt to drive out in many parts of the United States. Chief of these is the English sparrow. It is of a quarrelsome disposition and is much given to driving other birds from their nests. In some districts it has completely expelled some of the most useful kinds of birds. It exists everywhere in such numbers as to render it a nuisance, and it may be said to be the greatest pest among American birds. Its favorite food is dandelion seeds, and it destroys many thousands of seeds, but as the dandelion does no real injury this habit does not offset all the harm done. It also eats other weed seeds but the greatest thing to be said in its favor is that it feeds on the cottony maple scale. It is probable that in small numbers the English sparrow might be classed among the useful, or, at least, one of the only partly harmful birds, but there is no bird whose numbers it is more desirable to reduce.

The common blue-jay is accused of some very bad habits, among them eating the eggs and young of small birds. It is a fruit eater and also a grain eater and frequently robs corn-cribs and injures newly planted fields. However, it eats some insects, mice and other small enemies of the farmer and as it is nowhere very plentiful, and does not live in flocks, there is not much cause for complaint. However, its cousin, the California jay, has an extremely bad record. It is a great fruit eater, and devastates prune, apricot, and cherry orchards. It is a serious robber of the nests of small birds and hens, and though it eats some grasshoppers and a very few weed seeds, it is thoroughly disliked by western fruit growers. It should be greatly reduced in numbers. Another California bird that has gained a bad reputation is the house finch or linnet. It does serious harm in the cherry and apricot orchards, not so much by eating as by pecking at the fruit. It probably pecks, and thus destroys, five times as much fruit as it eats. As the bird is very abundant, it sometimes causes the loss of almost the entire crop of a small fruit grower. It does not deserve protection, for it eats the buds and blossoms of fruit trees and does little to compensate for all the harm done. Its best habit is eating woolly plant-lice.

No article on birds would be complete that does not dwell on the enormous destruction of birds for trimming hats. As one writer puts it, we pay eight hundred million dollars a year for hat trimmings, assuming the insect ravages to be due to the killing of our birds for millinery purposes. While this is exaggerated, it is undoubtedly true that this is the largest cause of the destruction of the birds of America.

The Audubon society says that we, as a nation, use 150,000,000 birds a year for trimming hats alone and that this single item would save our crops from insect destruction and largely rid our fields of weeds.

If a few hundred dollars are stolen from a bank, the greatest efforts are made to catch the thief, and if possible to get the money back; but the great army of insects destroy each year, almost as much in money value as all the national banks in the country have on deposit, and this wholesale destruction might largely be prevented if every woman and girl took (and kept) a pledge not to use wings, breasts, or birds on her hats. There is no objection to the use of ostrich feathers, which are carefully plucked from the live birds. The feathers grow again, just as the wool grows on sheep that have been sheared. Neither is there any objection to using the feathers of the barn-yard fowls which are killed for food.

Only a little less is the loss caused by so-called "sportsmen," men who kill only for the pleasure of shooting, or who, because they like the taste of quail, shoot as many as they can in a day instead of only enough to satisfy hunger. Often a farmer sells for a very small amount the privilege of hunting on his farm, thinking he is making money when in fact he is losing ten dollars for every one he makes.

The quail, sparrows and other birds on the farm are destroyed. As a result the weed seeds are not eaten and a big crop comes up in the spring. In the summer there are no quail on the farm to destroy insects. The insects and the weeds together make the crop poorer, and the owner feels that farming is growing less profitable, when in fact he has failed to take ordinary precautions to obtain a good crop by protecting the birds.

With the huntsman and his bag of birds we may class the small boy with his rifle or sling-shot. A single boy does little harm but all the boys in the country taken together do a grave amount of damage.

Last in the list comes the egg hunters, who by robbing nests can kill four or five birds at a time, simply for mischief. A party of boys can, by a day's sport, make a serious difference in the number of birds in a region where they are not plentiful and thus have a large share in damaging the crops.

If, then, birds play so large a part in the welfare of the farm and in turn in the prices of farm crops, fruit, lumber and cotton cloth, it is most desirable that every effort be made to reduce the numbers of harmful birds and to encourage the useful species.

Many of the states now have excellent laws for the protection of birds; but without a large number of game wardens, it is difficult to enforce the laws closely unless the public sentiment is strongly against the killing of birds. Laws should be made to protect birds against the egg hunter, (except for the purpose of study, and then a license should be required), sling-shots should be prohibited, as they already are in many places. All hunters should be required to have a license, the number of birds killed by a single person in a single day should be limited, and certain birds should always be protected by law. These laws should be as nearly uniform as possible in all the states and there must be a desire on the part of all the people to see these laws obeyed.

The boys and girls should be banded together in the schools or in societies and pledged to protect birds and not to destroy them. The girls should pledge themselves not to wear birds for ornament.

Women's clubs might do much to popularize the movement for the protection of birds, and to that end should try to establish a sentiment among their members against their use for millinery.

All these agencies working together will make a vast difference in the number of birds, and as a result, in the good that they do, but the great work must be done by farmers themselves. They will need to protect themselves in certain ways against the harm done by many of the birds that on the whole are extremely useful.

To protect poultry from owls do not allow it to roost in the trees; to protect from hawks, keep the young ones near the house, and if possible cover their runways with wire netting.

To protect against grain eating, use scarecrows or put up a dead crow as a warning. Mixing seed corn with tar so as to coat it will prevent crows from pulling it up at planting time.

To protect against fruit eating, plant wild fruits. The best of all trees for this purpose is the Russian mulberry, which ripens at the same time that cherries do and is particularly relished by all fruit-eating birds. If planted in barn-lots, chickens and hogs will eat all the fruit that falls to the ground, making it serve a double purpose. The fruit of wild cherry, elder, dogwood, haws, and mountain-ash are eaten by birds, and if a farm be planted with such trees and bushes in the barn-yard, along the lanes or in some of those unproductive spots that are to be found on every farm, birds will be attracted to the farm and will pay well for themselves, and the farmer's crop of cultivated fruit will be protected. Birds themselves distribute many seeds, particularly of wild fruits.

The farmer who keeps several cats must pay for it in the loss of birds, for birds will not nest where they are constantly watched by cats. Boxes for martins and other birds, bits of hay, horse-hair and string scattered about will often encourage birds to build about an orchard or farm. A wood-lot, besides paying in other ways, will afford nesting places for a large number of birds. To place a drinking and bathing place near the house is one of the best methods of attracting birds, which will use it constantly.

By all these methods and a little winter feeding with crumbs, apple peelings or waste fruit and grain, the farmer will be able to induce a good variety of birds to nest on his farm, and will receive in return great protection from the small mammals, insects and weeds that would lessen the amount of his harvests.

REFERENCES

Relation Between Birds and Insects. Yearbook 486.

Annual Reports of the Smithsonian Institution.

Annual Reports of the National Audubon Society.

Bird Day. How to Prepare For It. C. C. Babcock.

Bird Neighbors. John Burroughs.

Bird enemies. John Burroughs.

How to Attract the Birds. N. B. Doubleday.

The Food of Nestling Birds. Yearbook 1900.

Does It Pay the Farmer to Protect Birds? Yearbook 1907.

Birds as Weed Destroyers. Yearbook 1898.

How Birds Affect the Orchard. Yearbook 1900.

Value of Swallows as Insect Destroyers. Yearbook Reprint.

Birds That Eat Scale Insects. Yearbook Reprint.

Birds Useful for the Destruction of the Cotton Boll-Weevil. Dept. of Agriculture Bulletins 57, 64.

Hawks and Owls From the Standpoint of the Farmer. Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin 61.

Some Common Birds in Their Relation to Agriculture. Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin 54.

Four Common Birds of the Farm and Garden. Yearbook 1895.



CHAPTER XII

HEALTH

When we have improved our soil and replanted our forests and learned the most economical methods of mining our great deposits of coal, iron, and other minerals; when we have made the waters do our work and carry our freight and water our waste places; when we have learned to care for our birds and our fishes, and taken measures to stop the ravages of insects; when we have preserved our natural beauties and increased them by planting trees, shrubs, and flowers, and filling unsightly corners; there still remains to be considered the greatest subject of all,—the people who are to enjoy this wonderful inheritance. If they were to be weak and sick, suffering from all kinds of diseases, dying in great numbers, all these things would count for little. But men and women, as they are learning how to conserve their natural resources, are thinking far more than ever before of health and how to keep it. It is necessary to think of these things, for as people crowd into cities, where they live a life different from that which nature intended, sickness and the death-rate increase greatly.

Health, by which we mean the possession of a strong, well body, free from pain, should bring with it great power to work and to think and to benefit the world; and should also bring great happiness and enjoyment to the person who possesses it, for though sick people may be happy, and well people unhappy, yet it is a general rule that to be strong and well is the first great step toward being happy.

The question, "Is life worth living?" was once happily answered, "It depends upon the liver;" and it is true in both senses, for not only does happiness depend on what one gets out of life, but on good digestion. It is only the person who feels well who really enjoys life.

The person who can get up each morning able to do a day's work or have a day's enjoyment, is the one on whom we must depend for the world's work and invention. We seldom find a strong, vigorous mind in a weak body.

On the other hand, the invalid is the idle member of the family or the community. He can not find pleasure for himself nor do anything to help others, and not only that, but he must be cared for by others, thus taking the labor of the sick person himself and of his nurse. It is coming to be seen that this is a great waste of time, of money, of work, and of happiness, and people are determining that if these wastes can be stopped, it is well worth all the time and thought and money necessary to bring about the change.

People everywhere are thinking about health, and because of this, Christian Science, the Emmanuel Movement and the various sects which practise faith or mental healing have sprung up.

Hospitals and health officers are doing much for the public health. Doctors themselves are changing their ideas and are teaching us not only how to cure but how to prevent disease.

Doctors are also seeking not only to prevent disease but to find new ways of treating it. They are discarding drugs in as many cases as possible, frequently using serums in which cultures from the disease itself are used for its cure.

Health means more ability to work, more means of learning, of accomplishing great things, more pleasures in every day that is lived; and so it is as important to preserve health, in order to enjoy life, as it is to prevent death. We can realize how few persons have perfect health by noting the common salutation "How do you do?" or "How are you?"

Serious sickness is such as renders a person entirely unable to work. Benefit societies have found that the average number of days of sickness per year from each person under seventy years of age is ten, of which at least two are spent in bed.

About a million and a half people die each year in the United States, and it is estimated that twice that number, or three million persons, are constantly unable even to care for themselves. The effect of this is felt on the patient himself, in suffering, in loss of time in which he is unable to earn money, and in the amount spent for doctors, medicine, and nursing. It is felt on the family, in which the household machinery is thrown out while the wife and mother nurses the sick members of the family, or is herself too ill to work, or when the father's income stops on account of sickness.

The entire community suffers from the constant idleness of three million persons, as well as from the deaths which withdraw a still larger number of persons from actual work for a period of two to five days during the time of death and burial of the bodies of members of the family.

Then there is all the long train of small ailments, which do not make us seriously ill, often do not even keep us from work, but which do take away from the pleasure and enjoyment of life, which render work a burden instead of a delight, and lessen our ability to work by many degrees.

Not only this, but they all have within them the possibility of developing into serious diseases. Such lesser troubles are colds, headache, catarrh, dyspepsia, nervousness, neuralgia, sore throat, skin eruptions, rheumatism, toothache, earache, affections of the eyes, lameness, sprains, bruises, cuts, and burns.

Civilization has brought us great blessings but it has also brought with it many dangers to health. Professor Irving Fisher of Yale says:

"The invention of houses has made it possible for mankind to spread all over the globe but it is responsible for tuberculosis or consumption. The invention of cooking has widened the variety of man's diet but has led to the decay of his teeth. The invention of the alphabet and printing has produced eye strain with all its attendant evils. The invention of chairs has led to spinal curvature, etc., etc. Yet it would be foolish even if it were possible to attempt to return to nature in the sense of abolishing civilization.

"The cure for eye strain is not in disregarding the invention of reading, but in introducing the invention of glasses. The cure for tuberculosis is not in the destruction of houses but in ventilation. It is a little knowledge that is dangerous. Civilization can, with fuller knowledge, bring its own cure, and make the 'kingdom of man' far larger than the 'nature' people can ever dream of."

Until within the last few years, sickness and death were regarded from a religious standpoint. All sickness was to be borne with patience and resignation because all our sufferings were sent by an all-wise Providence. But since science has clearly proved that typhoid fever is usually caused by an impure water supply, and that boiling the water would prevent the suffering, expense and possible death; that the dreaded yellow fever can be banished from communities that destroy the eggs of certain mosquitoes; and many other facts in regard to health have been learned, a great change has come over the popular belief. It is seen that, to a great extent, man holds his own fate and is responsible for his own suffering, and people are eager to learn more about their own bodies, how to cure them and how to keep them well.

This knowledge has already done much to prolong life. The average length of life in India, where no attempt is made to check disease, is twenty-five years. In England the length of life has doubled in a few generations. In Sweden, where the people live a sanitary life, the average is over fifty years, in this country, forty-five years.

Insurance companies and benefit societies keep close watch of their members and they report that a person ten years old may now count on living to be sixty years of age. That is the average age, whereas a hundred years ago the average expectation of life at that age was only fifty-three years.

And this is true in spite of the fact that people have been crowding into cities, that they are living on richer foods, taking less exercise in the open air, living in houses which shut out the fresh air, and doing dozens of other things that have tended to lower rather than to raise the average.

We can scarcely realize the possibilities of life if, with all the present scientific knowledge of disease and health, we could have a generation of people living according to nature's laws.

Life can be not only lengthened but strengthened. There are many instances of frail, feeble children who have developed into exceptionally strong men and women. One of the most noted is Von Humboldt, the great scientist, who as a child was very weak physically, and, he himself says, was mentally below the average, but who lived to the age of ninety, and developed one of the greatest minds of his century.

Doctor Horace Fletcher, noted for his theories in regard to eating, was rejected at the age of forty-six for life insurance but so strengthened his constitution by careful living that by the time he was fifty he not only obtained his life insurance but celebrated his birthday by riding one hundred and ninety miles on his bicycle.

If we could imagine a person who all his life had lived in a locality where the air was pure; in a house where fresh air entered day and night, and which was heated to a uniform temperature; whose food had always consisted of the most pure and nutritious material prepared in the most wholesome way, eaten slowly and in proper quantity; if bathing, sleep, rest, exercise, brain work and pleasure had each its due proportion; if he could be always guarded from contagion and accidents, we can imagine that such a person would be free from disease and that death might be long deferred. Of course, death can not be prevented, only postponed, but disease can be prevented, and so we can increase the chances of postponing death. Doctors tell us that under ideal conditions there would be only one cause of death—old age.

There is no question that under such conditions life could be prolonged far beyond what is now usually considered its span. One hundred years or more might easily, we imagine, become the average of life, instead of the great exception.

We can hope for these things in the future though it will take several generations at least to bring them all about, but we need not wait so long for some of the best results. There are many things that can be done at once to prolong life and prevent illness. Since we know that many diseases are preventable and we know the suffering and sorrow, as well as expense, that come from sickness and premature death, we should all eagerly unite in doing all that we can to stop these ravages.

There are two agencies that will help to bring this about: individual or private means, and general or public means. Both are absolutely necessary if we are to be successful in stamping out disease. Professor Fisher says: "Personal hygiene means the strengthening of our defenses against disease. Public hygiene seeks to destroy the germs before they reach our bodily defenses."

In the first place, in order to learn what we may do to lengthen the span of life we must learn something of the nature of disease. Doctors tell us that diseases are of two classes. The first are hereditary, or inherited; those which pass from parents to their children and often run through an entire family. It is more often the tendency to disease that is inherited, rather than the disease itself, and so even these inherited diseases may often be prevented by careful living.

Diseases which may be inherited include rheumatism, gout, scrofula, diabetes, cancer and insanity. This class of diseases is the most difficult to prevent and to cure. For some of them no cure has been found.

The other class comprises the diseases of environment, or personal surroundings,—that is, our manner of living both as regards our private life and our relations to other people. These diseases are largely preventable and it is with them that most of the work of prevention is to be carried on.

A disease is considered preventable if, by using the best known means of treatment, it might be prevented or cured, so that either the disease or the death usually resulting from it would be avoided.

Of course, not all deaths from a given disease could be prevented even with the best known means. Infant diseases constitute one class which is considered most hopeful of betterment through a pure milk supply and better hygiene; and yet many authorities believe that not more than half the deaths could be prevented owing to the large part played by weather conditions, feeble constitutions, and other unchangeable conditions.

Preventable diseases may be divided into six classes:

(1) Diseases caused by lack of proper hygiene.

(2) Diseases caused by bad habits.

(3) Contagious diseases.

(4) Diseases caused by insects.

(5) Accidents, wounds, or operations and their resulting diseases.

(6) Diseases remedied by slight means.

We will treat each of these in turn.

(1) By proper hygiene is meant the proper treatment of the body as to breathing, eating, drinking, sleeping, bathing and rest. This treatment includes plenty of fresh air, both day and night, keeping outdoors as much as possible, and in well-aired houses the rest of the time. Vigorous but not violent exercise, brisk walking, regular physical exercise, such as is practised in gymnasiums, will go far toward keeping the body in good condition.

The question of fresh air in the home is one of the most important points to be considered. The bedrooms, the living-rooms, and the kitchen should have the air changed constantly, not once or twice a day. In order to prevent drafts, and that the house may not be kept at too low a temperature in winter, a board, eight to twelve inches in height, may be placed across the bottom of a window that is raised.

Many diseases, not only of the throat and lungs, but of the other organs, may be prevented by the constant introduction of fresh air into our rooms day and night.

Tuberculosis causes more deaths than any other single disease in America, and the sickness and disability continue longer than with most diseases. It is extremely contagious, being a germ disease, and not an inherited one, as was formerly supposed. It increased very rapidly for a few years but is now slightly decreasing, owing to better knowledge of its cause and cure.

Its prevention and its cure both lie largely in fresh air. Physicians say that no one who lives an open-air life with plenty of fresh air night and day will contract it. The cure which is restoring hundreds to health is to find a place where the air is pure, and live and sleep practically outdoors; to eat as much milk, raw eggs, and meat as can be digested and to observe the other rules of hygiene. Incipient cases, those in the earliest stages, may sometimes be cured while continuing at work by following the other rules as nearly as possible.

On account of the extremely contagious nature of tuberculosis, special care should be taken to prevent its spread. The sputum coughed up from the lungs is the principal carrier of the disease, and the person who, having tuberculosis, even in its earliest stages, spits in a public place, is an enemy of mankind, for he endangers the lives of hundreds of others. The only excuse for this is that he usually does it through ignorance, but the knowledge of the danger should be so impressed on all the people that no one could plead ignorance, and for a consumptive to spit on the street should be counted as much a crime morally as for a smallpox patient deliberately to expose others to the disease.

Great care should of course be taken in the home of a consumptive patient to prevent the infection from spreading through the family. Separate sleeping-rooms, thorough disinfection, and the use of paper napkins which are burned at once, to take the place of handkerchiefs, should be some of the means employed.

Pneumonia, pleurisy, bronchitis, grip, colds, and catarrh are some of the other ailments which may be largely banished by living the outdoor life. The method of treatment is medical, is different in each case, and should be decided by the family physician. The constant habit of breathing impurities, day after day and year after year, brings about a gradual change in the tissue of the lungs.

In the same way, simple food to take the place of the rich, heavy foods eaten in large quantities, will prevent many of the diseases of the stomach, liver, and kidneys, and improve the general health and strength. A diet of less meat and more eggs has been tried by football teams in training and found to give an equal amount of strength with greater endurance. A diet of milk, cereals, vegetables, nuts, and fruits, raw or simply cooked, with a small amount of animal foods, will perhaps give the best results in this climate. Food fried in fats, rich pastries and gravies are the hardest to digest, and better health will usually follow discontinuing them.