Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1888-04-21
A Plea for the English Sparrow.

"a L AO1 1Ol Vic 1llBllou NpeIllOW.
L. j. Atwater, in April Wide Awake.
Even the kind.hearted John Bur-
rOughs has given a reluctant assent
to the popular verdict against the
English Sparrow. Buta popular out
cry is not Arrays well-founded. The
noisy, pugnacious, often greedy little
bird has such hosts of enemies that
it is only manly to see il popular
prejudice is not going too far, and
whether or not the English Sparrow
is a wholly bad bird.
Some years ago lived in a town
in Western New York, not far from
Rochester. In my garden was a fine
peach-tree, full of blossoms. AS |
lived in the outskirts of the town, a
sparrow at that time, seldom had
been seen in the garden.
One day a neighbor not two blocks
away said to me: "The English
SparrOws are destroying all the
peach-bl0ssOms! Smith and his boys
are shooting all that come in his
yard. But | won't fight the birds.
AS l can afford it, prefer to buy my
peaches" .r
"Smith and his boys saved the
blossoms but got barely fifty peaches
from dozen trees and those were
mostly too wormy to be used. My
tree, untouched by blossom destroy
ers," had less than dozen peaches,
and they were wormy; while the
friend who allowed the English Spar
rows to work their own sweet will
had about half-bushel of fair-cheek-
ed, full-sized, beautiful peaches.
At this time when the blossoms
were covering the trees, l had a news
paper controversy Through a Gene
va jOurnaD with a Rochester fruit
grower on this same subject, for /
had examined hundreds of blossoms
and found the germ of some insect in
most of them. | insisted then, and
still do insist that the sparrows de-
stroyed such blossoms as not only
would have destroyed the fruit that
year, but for many Subseqent years.
In some portions of Illinois in which
farmers are unable to raise wheat
on account of the insect known as
weevil. But great cutlery is made
that the English Sparrow destroys
wheat! How many have made any
examination of ,Chat was being de-
stroyed in order to tell positively
whether the wheat was sound or not ?
Now, sons of farmers, you may help
settle the question. 1t is not an un-
knightly deed to defend the charac-
ter of an unpopular bird.
Put down in clear space one peck
of sound wheat; then ten feet away
put down one peck of wheat that is
full of weevil then stand back and
, Just wait and notice what the spar.
, rows do.
believe that you will find that
: invariably the diseased wheat will
be eaten first. If the birds are UerJ
hungry they may afterwards take
the good wheat. But even boys cal
as long as they are hungry.
For centuries the crow,too has beer
q shot at, destroyed and abused by
men; and today how few know
or will believe the good that crows
do in agriculture. | refuse to let any
one disturb crows when they settle
on my newly-planted corn-fields, and
my neighbors, here in Southern
) Maryland, have to replant far more
, than do. do not dispute that thu
: crows take some toll for destroying
t cut-worms; but 1 think them emit
tied to as much as they take.
> l took a neighbor through his owl
d corn-feld and offered him dolla
I for every ear of corH(not yet fully ripe
which had been partially eaten b.
> the crows but which did not SHOW
. traces of the corn-worm. He coul'
not find one from which the crov
. had not first taken the worm. Il
\ no case could sound ear be foun,
y that had been disturbed by the crows
+ Still the same man continues to shoe
the crows.
u Entomology and ornithology, i
their practical application, ar
o branches of agriculture, and there
: need of postgraduate study in tn
gardens and fields. These science
cannot be fully learned in theschool'
q DIR. J. II. McIean's Strengthenin
Cordial and Blood Purifier, by il