Norwich bulletin., 1914-03-19

these semi arid" lands where durum wheat, or Wilson wheat, as 1t is now being called. in honor of the ex-secre- tary of agriculture, might be grown It is easy to see. therefore, that if even & small part of these acres were pro
 ducing wheat at the rate of fifty
 bushels an acre. as they will some day, the cost of living, about which we hear So much. wouldn't be nearly so high as
 It is now.
 The government does so many things
 Of this sort that it would take not only q whole book, but a whole library, to
 tell you about all of them. Just now
 all the departments of agriculture are
 working very hard to find some way of
 getting rid of the insects which are de
 stroying our crops and our forests. One
 of these insects alone, the cotton boil weevI, which makes it's home in the
 boil or pod of the cotton plant, caused
 loss of over S8,000,000 in the year
 1909, and 1t would be hard to say just
 how much our other injurious insects
 costing us every year
 From all these things 1t is easy to
 see how important nature study fs,
 but perhaps the little folks think that
 the little bit they will ever learn about
 nature will never do the country any
 good. That is not so at all. In the first place there is no reason for sup
 posing that all of them will be satis-
 lied with knowing just 8. little. Some Of them will probably want to know
 a great deal. Among all the thousands
 or children now attending the public
 schools why may we not suppose that
 there may be a future Darwin, a Her bert Spencer or a Huxley?
 In the next place the people who know a lot about things cannot help i us very much unless we know a lit tie about those things ourselves The government may pass all the laws it likes for the protection of birds or the destruction of injurious insects and plants but if people don't know enough 1 about these birds and plants and in sects to make them want to see the laws enforced. they will do very little good. The Department of Agriculture may tell the cotton growers to get rid l of the cotton boil weevil, but if the 1 growers don't know enough to do what they are told they will be no bet 1 ter off than they were before They must work together. too if they want to get results, for the weevils won't l stay on the farm where they were l pred They are great travellers and 1 fond of new pastures.
 1 This. indeed is the reason why we i make so little headway against our in 1 sect enemies Instead of spraying our i trees and crops, 1t would be much ] cheaper and easier to let the birds 1 eat the insects. But some people want 1 to eat the birds, and others want to 1 trim hats with their bodies Others. again, want to shoot them simply for l sport" as they call it. And so they have gone on killing them in spite of
 everything that the scientific people ! whom we pay to study these things i and give us good advice about them ! could say. If only they had learned little about nature and her ways
 at school they surely would not be so stupid
 It is better te know much than iit- | tie. But it is 8 great thing even t6 | llno~ 8 little. and every boy or girl i who learns to protect a beautiful or useful bird. or to destroy an injurious plant, is learning something which will l not only he source of great pleas = lIre te him or her. but a great benefit
 to the country well.