Page:Bird-lore Vol 06.djvu/99



72 Bird - Lore

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A Birmonthly Mazatinc Devoted to the study and Protection ot Birds uncut. axon- or run Aruueo.“ SOCIETIES Edited by FRANK Mr CHAPMAN Published by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

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SUBSCRIPTION RATES

Price in lite United Slates. Canadaand Mexico twenly gents a number. one dollar a yeah pest.

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Bud-Lore‘s Motto: A Bird in [he Ens}! rt "/0th Two I" the Hand

DURlNG April and May the Editor ex- pects to be aﬁeld. often beyond the reach of mail. and he bags the indulgence of his correspondents during this period.

Birds and Farmers

The investigations of economic ornitholo» gists have so clearly established the value of birds to the farmer that one might imagine their labors ended with the publication in easily accessible form of the results of their work The average farmer, however, is the most conservative oi menr His knowledge at agriculture has usually been gained by the hard, expensive, practical experience of many years. He is selfrrelianl and conse- quently regards innovations in methods of ferti ng, planting and tilling with more or less distrust and adopts modern ideas with Caution, He is so constantly at war with the elements and nature that he is apt to believe that every living creature, from man to grubs, is the farmer‘s especial enemy. A Cooper‘s Hawk is seen capturing a chicken and all Hawks are condemned; Crows pull his corn and Robins eat his Cherries, and birds in general become grain and fruit thieves

insects, furnished with an artiﬁcial food- supply by certain crops. become so abun- dant that it is dithcult for him to believe that birds are in any sense a check on the increase of insect lite. We recently heard a promi~ nent fnlilrgrower, president of a horticul- tural society. state before a legislative com-

mittee that he n‘t believe birds were of the slightest value to the fruit-grower, who, in his opinion, would be just as well oi} if there were no birds at all. He had to spray anyway, and it would be just as easy to spray a little more and let the birds got He unfortunately failed to say whether he would extend his spraying operations to all vegeta- tion subject to insectrattack. though it is quite probable he would have been willing to let the world take care of itself, provided his orchard was preserved.

A writer in 'The Rural New Yorker' says, " Farmers and fruit-growers surely have the right to expect accurate information as to the economical value at the wild birds likely to be encounteer on the farm, from the many aliieial investigators employed by colleges and experiment stations: but the actual status of certain species, according to common observation, is widely at variance with that assigned by writers and teachers of Ornithology.” A bitd’seconomic value, however, is not to be ascertained by "com- mon observation." A very uncommon kind of training is required to ﬁt one properly to study the food habits of birds and to learn therefrom the place oi the species in the eco~ nomics oi natttre and agriculture. Nor can the best equipped observer hope to reach sa 'sfactory conclusions merely from observ- ing the bird Olll-0E>d00l’8a This is an important side of his work. but it must be supplemented by detailed stomach analyses wherein he avails himself of the services of specialists in other departments of science— entomology, botany, mammalogy, etct Fur- thermore, the investigators in this ﬁeld are not "many" but pitifully few. nor can we hope that the subject will be adequately and thoroughly studied until each state in the Union realizes its importance and takes the steps needed to inaugurate a series of inves- tigations. No individual, unaided, can con- duct successfully thorough studies of the food of birds. If the farmers and fruit-growers, therefore will aid the economic ntnitholugist he will be very glad to avail himself of their assistance. and in the end they will be bent- ﬁtted by the researches to which he is devot— ing his life and which are made in the agriculturists' interests.