THE ANNUAL MEETING. 115 



Horticultural Society, is to do what we cau to encourage tree planting in 

 Michigan. 



1 can do no better than close with the following which I recently wrote for 

 the Rural New Yorker : " There are but few farms that contain enough orna- 

 mental trees about the buildings. Trees increase the value of a place, whether 

 the owner wishes to sell or to use it for a home. Trees shelter the dwelling 

 and the barns from piercing winds; they add comfort and joy to man and 

 beast; they economize the food of animals; they save fuel in the sitting room; 

 they harbor birds ; they afford shade in summer. Plant trees for yourself, 

 for your wife, for your children and grand children. Plant trees as a good 

 example to your neighbor and the stranger who passes by your farm. Plant 

 trees as a monument to your memory. They will grow and remind others 

 who come after you of the generous hand who planted and cared for them." 



Following Prof. BeaPs address, Prof. J. B. Steere of the State University 

 read a valuable paper, illustrated by a collection of specimens, on 



THE MIGRATION OP MICHIGAN BIRDS. 



In a state of nature, animal and plant life seem almost exactly balanced 

 against each other. The oaks and the walnuts of the forests and the grasses 

 and flowers of the plains, after they have full-fed those that feed upon them, 

 still have fruit enough left to keep up their species. One of the great laws of 

 life is this: that the individuals of no one species shall be too abundantly pro- 

 duced, and so there shall be room and food for all species. It is probable that 

 there are continual vibrations from this balance of life, which finally lead to 

 the extermination of some species and the bringing in of others; but these 

 changes are self-regulated and too slow in their action to be noticed by man. 



But man himself upsets this balance wherever he plants his foot. He cuts 

 down the forests and plants the cleared lands to strange vegetation from other 

 countries. He drains the marshes, and the lakes and valleys are filled up 

 by the soil washed down from the bared hills. By these rapid and violent 

 changes the wind currents are disturbed, and the rain fall and temperature are 

 interfered with. Everyone of these changes strikes directly at the harmony of 

 animal and plant life. Some species of insects and larger animals are extermi- 

 nated altogether. Others from increased food or from the destruction of their 

 enemies, multiply to immense swarms and hordes that threaten to devour every- 

 thing ; and, as if the native species were not sufficient to contend w T ith, man him- 

 self introduces many from other lands. And even when the entire destruction 

 of his crops is not threatened, civilized man is not content to make himself a 

 part of this great harmony of nature, and to share with the rest of life, allow- 

 ing the weevils and the cut worms and the caterpillars to take their part of 

 the crop, but he covets it all. He desires all his wheat heads to be full, all his 

 apples free from worms and all his potato tops untrimmed, and so he has war, 

 unceasing war with insect life. 



In this bitter struggle, birds are man's natural and most readily observed 

 allies. The ichneumon-fly may fill the skin of the cabbage worm with eggs, 

 while it hangs moulding the chrysalis which shall be its coffin. The lady-birds 

 may destroy the potato bugs, the frost may kill the eggs of the grasshoppers, 

 and so our enemies may vanish. But these results are produced silently and 

 unnoticed, while we can see the woodpecker as he chisels away at our apple 

 trees in his search after the borers; and we can hear the vireos in our trees as 

 they sing their undeserved thanks after each caterpillar, which hardly checks 

 their song on its way down their throats. Their good works are known and 



