The Chesterfield advertiser. [volume] (Chesterfield C.H., S.C.) 1884-1978, 1917-05-10
PROTECTION OF BIRDS
A FARM ASSET

GU otdCeS were SCaClereO over 0lUer-
mt sections of the country where
most needed, would it help fight the
high cost of living? Statistics show
hat annually there is loss of be-
.ween $S00,oOO,OO0 and $9OO,OOO,-
300 in the agricultural products Of
he United States, all due to the raw
ages of insects.
This fact was cited recently by
leading Chicago paper, and it was
further cited that the loss might be
lessened were birds pro-
tccted as they should be. When one
of the leading metropolitan newspa-
pers of the land advocated that every
available plot of ground be turned
INTO garden spot and cultivated,
and when in the same issue that same
paper urges that birds be protected
hat they might destroy insects, it is
surely time for everyone to consider
THAT part he is to do in the work,
and, insofar as possible lend hand
m doing his mite. One insect de-
struction of hundreds, and in some
cases thousands, ere the summer is
over.
Government statistics and personal
observation show over and over again
that the birds are the farmers best
friends, which, in return for their
services, ask only protection that they
may bring forth more enemies of in
SectS.
Just how is this protection to be
given? Happily the time is passed,
or nearly so, when the farmers think
that the birds must be destroyed be-
cause of the fruit they eat. In com
parison with tahe amount Of good
they do, the amount of fruit eaten by
birds during the summer is an in
fnitesimal matter,-a mighty good
form of insurance for the farmer.
But there is another way in which
the birds require protection, and that
is protection during their nesting
season. Not only should prowling
cats be restrained and egg collectors
either made to see the folly of their
heartless whims or else be summoned
before the law, but provision should
be made for the nests. Birds like
company. Even the bluejay, usually
termed rascal but at heart boon
companion of the farmer, likes to
have his nest near a dwelling. The
robin appreciates forked sticks placed
in trees for him, and the wren, blue
bird and purple martin enjoy the COM
panionship of man as soon as they
learn that he is their friend.
The best way to get on amicable
terms with birds is to build and put
up bird houses and sec that such are
not destroyed by boys or preyed up
on by cats. Put up a single bird
house this summer if you are skeptic
and watch the wren, the bluebird, or
purple martin, as it feeds it's young,
taking note Of the kind of feed it
uses and the number Of trips made
per hour. Keep a record of this for
a few hours, estimate the good done
IN day, in a week, in month, and
N a nesting season, and you will be
wiser the following year.
| know one farmer in particular
Who lost, during one summer, three
rows of corn forty rods long. The
corn grew next to a fence row heavi-
ly sodded with blue grass, which pro-
iuccd swarms of grasshoppers. For
the sake of experiment alone, for this
lgrncr was skeptic, last spring he
mt up twcnty-onc bird-houscs, placed
40 rods apart on the fence along
,se forty rods. The houses were
mo that he and the boys had made
q Iring the winter months, from dry
4. pods boxes obtained in town. Thir-
en- of the twenty-one houses were
j.. habited during the following sum-
mcr, six by wrens, four by bluebirds,
and three by colonies of purple mar
tins.
The grasshoppers that summer
made a rich living for the birds, and
when the fall came, that farmer had
the satisfaction of gathering twen-
ty-one bushels of corn from the three
.ows that grew next to the fence right
where there was no corn at all the
year before. With corn selling at
ffty-fve cents per bushel, it repre-
scnted saving of $12.65 for that
year alone, and with the same in
'urance for the following year with
no outlay at all. Does it pay? Boys,
get busy. Get your fathers to figure
With you how much corn growing next
10 fence row is destroyed by in
sects, and then see if your fathers
will let you put up birdhouses and