The Somerset reporter., 1890-05-22
SAVED BY THE CROWS.
THEY WERE ONCE THE BENEFACTORS
OF ASHMORE GROVE.

Of RottMORe GROVE.
Al Illinois Farmer Tells How These
birds, Usually Regarded as Pests. Saved
the Corn Crop The Edgar County Ag-
ricuIturalists Rectify Mistake.
There is one place in the world where
crows, those old time enemies of the
farmer, are the petted and spoiled dar-
lings of whole district" said man
with Il good sized wart ON his nose and
the air of t; substantial rural landowner.
The locality speak of is Ashmore
Grove, in Edgar county, Ills, and the
surrounding country. About IL score of
years ago there were there no larger
number of crows than in other parts of
the state. But at that time these birds
suddenly began to arrive in droves.
There seemed to be no end to them. Still
they came, and one could not take step
before ones own door without hearing
the rasping, gutteral cry of these birds.
ZONE GRAND MEEsTECK."
Now the soil of Ashmore Grove and
all around is heavy, fertile, black and
loamy, and the average yield per acre
WIS 1T thar time about sixty bushels OF
corn. The farmers naturally jumped to
the conclusion that this influx of crows
was due to the fertile soil and to the
abundance of corn. They believed that
the crows were there just to eat up all
the grains of corn that We're intrusted to
mother earth at seed time, and that they
would again resume their robber work
about harvest time, That seemed quite
natural supposition. didn't it, gentle
men?
We'll, it so happened that the farmers
of Ashmore Grove finally lost all patience
with this crow intliction. War was tie
clared against them-war to the knife.
A campaign of determination was opened
up against them. Men, women and chill
dren all turned out, We're divided into
little guerrilla bands of from four to ten,
and then the work of wholesale slaughter
began. All sorts of weapons were used,
not only shotguns and slungshots, but
even bows and arrows, stones, fire, poison
and trans Grouns of trees on which
crows nsed 70 snend tbe n;gbt were
burned down. In fact it was sort of
St Bartholomew night for the crows of
Edpar county The unshot was of
cnnrse that mighty few crows remained
alive to tell the tale of how they had
been treated by the younger generation.
The few that had been overlooked in
fact sought pastures new.
But, gentlemen, we were otf-badly
off We had made, as the Frenchman
said, 'one grand meesteck. For that
same year there came new plague over
us The farmers began to notice hith-
erto unknown sort of weevil, or worm.
This blamed little nuisance not only ap-
peared III masses all over, but 1t was soon
noticed that it ate up the roots of the
young corn plant. thereby destroying it
completely, and afterward 1t tackled
even the grass III the meadows and ate
that up. The damage done by this tiny
creature was hundredfold worse than
all the damage done by the crows. But
these two separate facts were at that
time not coupled by the farmers, who.
on the contrary, still continued to kill off
all the crows they could see anywhere,
That summer, gentlemen, the yield of
corn in Aahmore Grove sank from sixty
to ten bushels per acre, and that in spite
of the fact that the weather had been ex-
ceptionally favorable to the corn crop.
CORRECTING THEIR ERROR.
.Jnst about this time neople beran to
raaact ~ little hit The consequence was
he conviction that tbe large inNux of
,,ro,ys in fine sn,inp had been SOLELY due
m tbe very aunearance of this weeyil
which to the crows was n dainty mo,.sel
inst as n pine point oyster is to Won or
me This conviction ruincd adherents
very ran;d,v and at last tbe farmers felt
50 mad at themselves for chasing away
or numbering all the rrows-tbeir best
frien1s-tbnt they cmld have kicked
themselves How toret tbe crows haek.
That was now the conundrum. At last
a general meeting was held. Everybody
for twelve miles around Ashmore Grove
was there. and the resolution was unani
mouslv carried TO import as MANY thou
sands of crows MS could be got. A num-
her of reliable men were selected for the
task
They went down to the Wabash river
country. which is the richest in crows in
the whole world, and there they organ
lied. with the help of the resident farm
ers. n grand still hunt for crows. With
in a week the delegation returned to Ash
more Grove with several thousand crows.
At dusk these imprisoned birds were let
loose. and as they did not fly far during
the night, they generally spent the hours
till dawn on the tops of neighboring trees.
Next morning they took good survey
of the land, found it to their liking, and