The Lebanon express. (Lebanon, Linn County, Or.) 1887-1898, 1891-04-10
cRoNER.s TRAP.


Although the legislature of Pennsyl-
vania two years ago officially recorded
its belief i'm the theory that the owl and
the hawk are friends and not enemies
of the farmer by repeating the law that
placed a bounty on the scnlps of these
birds there is mt least one rock-ribbed
old farmer in the state who still holds
To the belief of the fathers that hawks
aud owls are pestiferous and destruct-
i've enemies of the agriculturist. says
a Harrisburg letter to the n. Y. Sun,
and he has adopted novel and by no
means humane way of making them
less. or at least of destroying their
power for charm. bounty or no bounty
This farmer is Benjamin Groner of
the Pine creek region. His sturdy of
the habits of both hawks and owls led
him wears ago to the discovery that
they always perch on the branch OF
some tree or high feaec post or other
good point If uhscrvatiOl near a
poultly yard before swoopiug down
upon The contents of the ward This
set Farmer Groucr To thinking. and he
thought out n couirivancc which lie he
lieyed would be the rninIiinn of every
hawk and owl that pro" led around his
premises.
He took scvthe blade made of the
finest stuff he could buy. He ground
and whetted the edge of this blade
until it was keen as keen culld be-
Then he fastened the butt end uf the
blade with bolts fast to long pole.
near the top. The blade was fastened
to the pole edge up and at an angle of
foFty-five degrees. The pole he then
set in the ground few rods from his
poultry yard, on the edge of wood
lot For several days an immense hen
IN at-ntfhA tho
premises, and from Il perch on Nhe
dead limb of a tree near the spot where
the farmer set his pole in the ground
had swooped down on n number of
Groner's fattest chickens. The farmer
chopped the dead limb of the tree away
| after setting his pole and scythe blade
and waited the result of the experiment
he was trying
In the afternoon of the same day the
hawk came sailing along over the tops
of the trees. Farmer Groner saw the
| hawk from his barn and cautiously
watched it. The big bird sailed down
to the tree where it had always made
! its perch, but not finding the dead limb
circled around few times and then
| dropped down on the outstretched
scyihe blnde, which appeared as con-
venient place of observation. The in-
4 staut the hawk lit it began to slid down
| the steep and smooth slant of the blade.
| and sliced its claws off as quickly
aud neatly as meat cutter slices
smoked beef. The bird fiuttered to
the ground, but rs its wings were still
at its command it flew away and never
came back to the Grouer farm again.
The farmer went out and found the
bleeding talons of the crippled bird.
and knew that his experiment was a
success. The next morning he found
a couple of sets of owl toes on the
ground under the scythe blade.
Ever since then one of these traps
has been on duty near his poultry
yard. and the frequent finding os owl
and hawk claws beneath it and a steady
increase in his poultry tlocks are in,
coutrovertible proof that it is doing
well the work it was planned to do. An
owl or hawk that lights on that terri
BILE perch is forever after untitled for
stealing chickens, for both birds cap
ture their prey with their talons.