Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1876-09-22
Save the Birds.

BIRDS have their place IN the plan
of our civilizations some we find suita-
BILE for food as the partridge, grouse, wild
ducks and others. Now as the crow, the
robin, the bobolink and scores Of others seem
to have no proper place, serve no purpose,
and hence are of no earthly use save as tar
gets for boys or sportsmen Of maturer years.
Consequently the wanton destruction of
these birds has been going on for years, until in
some sections of the country they are nearly
exterminated. Nature, in this as in every
other case, asserts her authority and ina
poses with unrelenting severity the penalty
for such folly and wickedness. Simultane-
GUS with the gradual extinction Of the birds,
comes the grasshopper burden in that Sec
ton of the country where forests and birds
are few, and where both alike should be pre-
served with jealous care. Who can tell but
that the terrible vistations Of pests from the
far West, the grasshoppers aud potato bee
ties, are attributable entirely to the whole
sale slaughter of their natural enemies, the
game birds We know that when the birds
were driven from Boston Common, insects of
all kinds which infest trees, multiplied to
such an extent as to imperil the existence
of the trees and no sooner had the devour-
ing English sparrow been introduced than
the insects disappeared. The insect pest is
inevitable, perhaps necessary evil, but
forgetting the great law that over against
every evil there is placed within our reach
a sure antidote, We all recklessly go about its
destruction, and then wonder at the strange
providence which does not in some mysteri-
GUS manner abate the evil. When our YER
mont farmers 60 or permit their sons to go
out shooting birds for the mere sport Of the
thing, they should not complain next sum-
mer when the devouriDg caterpillar con-
sumes the foliage and fruit of their promis-
ing orchards, or bugs without name or mum.
Der prey upon every green thing. Prof
Riley the state entomoogist of Missouri esti-
mates that Zone grouse will, in one season,
consume the eggs and larvae Of locusts
enough, if Matched out, to destroy one hun
bred acres of crops. IL must be a difficult
matter to estimate the number of insects the
little birds searching the ground over every
day the year through will consume and
one such visitation as the West had from
grasshoppers would seem sufficient to teach
even the ignorant that, when the regulations
of nature are interfered with, and the guards
she has furnished are destroyed, the penalty
is certain to follow
Many birds have marketable value as
articles of food, more especially in the West
and an eminent authority says "that thu
game of Iowa in a given year was wortl
twice as much to the state in dollars anC
cents, as her six hundred thousand head o.
sheep"
The tables Of the great hotels at Saratoga
are supplied during the season from thu
Adirondack wilderness and the wilds of west
ern Canada. The direct commercial value
of birds as articles of food may not be very
great to Us in this state, though their worth
in this respect has been greatly underVal.
ued, but as scavengers and greedy consum
ers of the insect pests they can hardly b,
valued too highly.