The anti-monopolist. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1874-1878, 1874-08-13
The cultivated fields and garden beds
Hosts of devouring insects crawled and
found
No foe to check their march till they had
made
The land desert, without leaf or shade"

made
The land desert, without leaf or shade
The town, like Herod, was devoured by
worms, because like him, it had slaughtered
the innocents. From the trees, upon which
a few last leaves blushed crimson with their
shame, the canker worm dropped upon
leach woman's bonnet, shawl, and gown
The farmers saw their error, confessed 1t,
and repealed the law, and myriads of birds
were brought in cages and set free, inst in
time to sing at the wedding Of their cham
pion, the professor. Instances are numer-
Gus in which like prejudice and injustice
ner
Professor jerks says that, in Bridgewater,
Mass, about 1890, on election day. the
occasion OF the usual shooting match, birds
were killed in such numbers that they were
sold by carloads to the farmers for fertilizers.
The resulting scarcity of birds was soon fol-
lowed by a decay OF heritage and
foliage. Tufts Of withered grass appeared
and widened into circles sere and scorched'
destroyed by the Larvae OF insects. The
farmers saw their error and learned a better
use for birds than that OF fertilization.
Flagg alludes to forest tracts in Virginia
and Carolina, in which hundreds of acres
were denuded by the larvae of a species of
the Bruprestidae, "a borer Of the beetle fam
ily,) when local warfare had long been
waged upon woodpeckers, who were charged
with the destruction OF the trees Mis-
guided people! The gay plumaged banquets
were devouring the real destroyers, as they
learned to their loss.
In a district of the enlightened State Of
Massachusetts gentleman shot all the robins
and woodpeckers about his premises III a fit
of indignation over few cherries, mutilat
Iv,fr fvoo oy,l al on f1n o. ho
same shot, and ultimately securing, in addi
ton, pestiferous abundance of bugs and
cut-wOrms.
A farmer, observing yellow birds in his
wheat fields, growing suspicious of their ac-
tons, shot one, and wishing to prove their
guilt, before executing summary vengeance
upon the rest, dissected the stomach and
found some wheat in which
some insects had burrowed and
two hundred of the destructive pests
The same short-sighted destruction has pre-.
vailed abroad. A lady in England once des-
troyed eight hundred birds by strychnine in
neighborhood already infested with des-
tructive insects. In the triumph OF cred
republicanism' in France the people, upon
the abolition of the game laws, unrestrained
by fear of landowners, pursued even the
song birds to the verge of determination.
The inevitable result was the destruction of
the products Of orchard, garden, and farm,
to lamentable extent
A correspondent of the London Times who
had labored under the prejudice and delu-
sion here illustrated, says; "Having my
fruit almost destroyed by insects, laid ali
the blame on the sparrows but on shooting
one, that was coming out of fruit tree a
green caterpillar dropped from his mouth,
and on examining its crop found no less
than twenty green caterpillars and great
number OF other insects. y
In Prussia, at one time, peasants were sub
lected to an annual agitation tax OF twelve
heads of sparrows; but the result of this
mistaken policy, at the end Of two years,
proved SO destructive to the wheat, which
the sparrows were prescribed for eating, that
the birds were invited back to the fields
again
In 1898 the forests of Brandenburg and Sax
ony were almost destroyed by the Larvae of
LepidopteroIs insects (moths) which found a
lodgment in the branches and fed upon the
tender wood An examination by natural
lists showed that the disappearance Of several
species of wood peckers and titmouse occa-
stoned the destructiveness
Button tells how the Isle Of Bourbon was
once overrun with locusts accidentally intro
duced in the soil which certain plants were
budded. A few pairs of the Indian grackle
were obtained (similar to our crow black
blrd) with promising results. Blundering
into the mistake that it was grain and not in
cipient locusts for which the birds were
boring the SOIL the colonists destroyed them
all. The insects again prevailed, when the
grackle were recalled, laws were enacted in
their favor, physicians pronounced their flesh
unwholesome as an additional protection,
and the grain was saved, while the locusts
were subordinated
Hence the Importance Of urging forest
culture by every means in our power.
Groves imply birds and birds mean ex-
terminated insects.
If we will suppose that in a township
infested with grasshoppers, there are
five hundred insectiverous birds, robins
black birds, sparrows, woodpeckers, etc.
and that each Of these destroys on ar
average one hundred grasshoppers pei
day. for the period Of ninety days. il
would amount to nearly FIVE million
grasshoppers But if these FIVE mil
lions were allowed to increase undis
turbed for FIVE years more what would
it amount to
We tried last winter to do something
to help tree culture in our frontier coun
ties; but the Republican legislature
while adding Sl47 900 to the State ap
preparations. could not spare a dollar
for this great work. Next winter VI
will try it again. When our treeles
plains are dotted with groves, musica
with the song Of birds, we will have les
to fear from the incursions Of the grass
hoppers. We will fight them with oul
natural allies, the birds. =