Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1912-02-23
THE ENGLISH SPARROW.

In the war against the DlrdS OF
America the English sparrow il not
having square deal
They are outlawed by the state OF
Ohio and rewards offered for their
destruction by neighboring states
and even the United States govern
ment is distributing tracts to inform
the people how to eXterminate them.
John Burrows, the naturalist, says
they are of no use. He has Joined
the ranks of the sportsman and pot
hunter, the boy with the target rife,
the cats, dogs and others in pleading
for their determination.
The English sparrow is the sur
that were of most use to the farmers
are gone. No bird accomplishes as
much in one season as the sparrow.
1t builds large nest early in
the spring and as soon as the first
lot of little birds hatch out another
lot of eggs is laid in the nest and the
little birds do the Matching and
the incubator is run all summer.
The amount of food required to run
this incubator is immense. All day
long the old birds will follow the
plow, harrows and cultivators pick
ing up white grub, corn worm, wire
worm, cut worm and other destruc-
tive bugs and carry them to their
nest. They won't eat angle worms,
that are supposed by scientists to
be beneficial to the land. have
seen chickens and sparrows follow
ing the plow-the chickens eating
the angle worms while the sparrows
picked up the white grubs, wire
worms, cut worms and corn worms
and carry them to their nests, all
day long.
l have seen flocks of sparrows
coming from three different barns to
the field where I was moving clover,
picking up grasshoppers by the
Wholesale and carrying them off to
feed their young birds. I have seen
them destroying the first crop of
Green Aphis on the apple trees, which
if not destroyed multiply so fast in
succeeding crops of them that they
som etimes shrink the wheat and oat
crop % to so per cent. l have seen
them eating and carrying away the
canker worms that destroy the
leaves and fruit of the apple trees.
The first year these worms COM
menced to destroy the orchards l
found two trees in the farthest cor
ner from the barn alive with little
green worms about Il of an inch
long, and lot of sparrows eating
them. Next morning they were all
gone. These were the last trees
the sparrows had cleaned up the or
chard.
One neighbor had an orchard ex-
tending SO rods back from his barn
The sparrows destroyed the worms
every year for 8 years on every tree
in the orchard, except about 10 trees
farthest away from the barn. Those
trees all died. One farmer had a
fine young orchard of choice apple
trees which was eaten up for six
years, the trees all died. He told
me how he had exterminated the
sparrow.
| have seen focks of English
sparrows eating ragweed seed when
the ground was covered with snow.
/ believe they are doing something
towards curtailing the ravages of
the curculeo.
1t is q little careless of the Ohio
experiment station and John Bur-
rows not to have discovered these
and many other good qualities of the
English sparrow long ago. But it is
not too late to investigate and cor
roborate these statements and move
to repeal that disgraceful act of the
Ohio Legislature that makes 1t
to harbor the English
sparrow
RETIRED FARMER.