St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1908-12-30
How Birds Preserve the Trees.

Edward Howe Forbush, New England
agent of the National Association of
Audubon Societies, has prepared the
following interesting article on attract
ing and feeding the birds;
Now and again some enterprising news
paper man expatiating on the work of
the Audubon Societies dishes up a re-
markable symposium regarding some
undertaking of the National Association
or makes extraordinary claims in re-
spect to the usefulness of birds. Then
some doubling Thomas" very properly
discounts the tale and even expresses
doubt as to whether the birds are, after
all, so necessary to mans welfare as the
protectionists would have us believe.
But the practical beneficial results of the
work of the birds have now been so long
observed and so conclusively proven that
there is no longer any room for doubt
regarding their usefulness Destruction
OF trees and crops always follow extreme
depletion of the numbers of the smaller
native birds. Moreover conservation of
birds produces the opposite effect
In lS94-5 | made experiments to at
tract birds into an old orchard in Med.
ford, Mass. Food and nesting boxes
brought the birds to the orchard in con-
siderable numbers. The succeeding sum-
mer apple tree insects such as the canker-
worms and the tent caterpilars were
very abundant and stripped the foliage
from most of the apple trees in the town;
but nine remained in good foliage and
bore almost the only full crop of fruit in
town that year. Details of this exper-
iment are given in bulletin entitled
Birds as Protectors OF Orchards, which
is published AMI distributed free by the
Massachusetts State Board of Agricul-
ture. Similar experiments year after
year have demonstrated clearly the dol
lar and cents value of the birds in
orchard and woodland. But while my
observations were under way the Ger
man Baron Hans Won Berlepsch was
carrying out, unknown to me, a number
of more extensive and painstaking ex-
periments in bird conservation on his
great estate at Seebach. He secured re-
suits there far more striking than my
modest efforts produced here. He
studied the methods of attracting and
feeding birds and those Of constructing
nesting boxes and preparing bird shelf
ers. He carried out the game preserve
principle with birds until he had breed |
ing on his home park of II acres about
1000 small birds, 2 pairs of wild ducks, |
one pair of Moor hens and one of grebes. |
Three hundred nesting boxes hung up in
his grounds are all inhabited by birds.
In his 400 acres OF woodland there are
two thousand nesting boxes and every
where shrubbery is so trimmed as to
make dense AMI safe nesting places for
the birds while the enemies of birds are
destroyed by the keeper of the estate.
The results of this work are that the
estates of the Baron Won Berlepsch are
free from insect injury when Others suffer.
In 1905 the woods in the country round
about were stripped by caterpillars of
Tortrix virdana. The wood Of Won Der
lepsch was untouched and stood out
among the surrounding woods like a
green oasis. At a distance of a little
more than a quarter of a mile from 1t
the first traces of the plague were ap
parent and a quarter of mile further
on it appeared in full force. This is just
about the distance that small birds carry
food to their young. The Prussian
Government forestets have now adopted
similar measures with like results. And
the National Association OF Audubon
Societies is now introducing into this
country for experimental purposes some
very successful, scientifically constructed
nesting boxes and feeding appliances
now in use by Baron Won Berlespch
with the expectation OF producing SINH
lar results here.