Year: 1872




every agency for lightning their labors
and enhancing their profits. To learn
what those agencies are, and how to
make them available are the marks of
discrimination between the intelligent,
enterprising, thrifty husbandmen and
the hap-hazard cultivator who dispises
everything like innovation and prefers
to follow in the footsteps of his prede-
cessors, not caring whether they lead
him to comfort and affluence, or to
poverty and its discomfort. We
spoke in our issue of 10th of the great
advantage, to the farmer, that will re-
suit from the destruction Of the tobac-
co fly. This can easily be effected by
poison administered by his own hand,
but not SO with the countless myriads
of other worms and insects that prey
upon everything he cultivates, from
the fruit tree to the humblest vegetable
in his garden. These depredators, if
left to undisturbed propagation, would
soon render it impossible to rear, to
maturity, vegetation of any kind. This
is the conclusion, at which, the most
learned observers of insect life have
arrived.


How then, it may be asked, have we
been so well protected against the raw
ages of these destroyers? We answer
mainly through the instrumentality
of the birds that are so wantonly de-
stroyed, by young and old, and whose
presence about our homesteads, is dis
couraged by every form of wanton
persecution. We have been aston
ished at the skill with which the rob
bin and black bird unearth the cut
worm as we'll as at the number they
will swallow in the course Of half an
hour; and seeing this, have wondered
at the short sightedness of farmers in
permitting these valuable allies to be
destroyed or driven off. We believe
that all birds prefer animal food, even
while indulging in variety of seeds
and fruits. This is the case with do
mesticated fowls, as we all know, and
if the endless variety of birds are the
friends of man, SO far as they aid in
the destruction of the enemies of veg
citation, we are brought to the logical
conclusion, that it is the duty of the
farmer to protect the winged denizens
of the air from the scavenger buzzard
to the tom tit that traverses body and
branch of every tree in pursuit of ene-
mics which seek to destroy it.


And this brings us to the point at
which we are aiming-that every far
mer shall post his lands, and by every
other practical means, protect the lives
of the cheering and innocent denizens
of the air, whose labors are indispen-
sable TO the success of the agricultur-
alist and whose trivial robberies OF
fruit trees and vineyards are a recon-
pense for their useful labors. Year
after year, the black bird, the mock
ing bird and the robbin are becoming
more rare, because of the wanton de-
structiveness of thoughtlcss boys and
vicious men, and in proportion as these
and other insect destroyers disappear,
the labors of the agriculturist increase
and his profits diminish. Then we
say to farmers-post your lands and
protect the birds which are valu-
able in proportion as they are permit
ted to multiply. Protect the partridge
for your grain fields, and deny to no
bird, pittance, or a roosting place and
nursery, because of the foolish and
mistaken prejudice that he is depre-
dator upon your garden, orchard, or
field. There is not a a farmer in the
country who is not aware of the de-
struction of bird life, and whose farms
and fruit trees are not beginning to
bear testimony to the same fact. Then
let all post their lands and give
ample protection TO the friends pro
vided for them by benificent Provi-
dpnce.