MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 335 



through the core, and many of theui ripening and dropping off prema- 

 turely, and were scarcely worth gathering and taking to market. Since 

 leaving my farm, my observations of different apple orchards lead me 

 to believe that had my land been a limestone soil with deep permeable 

 clay for tree roots to permeate and draw moisture from below to carry 

 them through a drouth, instead of a thin stratum of freestone dirt un- 

 derlaid with shale, where falling moisture was leached oat in a few 

 <Jays, leaving the trees to suffer for food and water at the time of their 

 greatest need, my apples might have, many of them, outgrown the in- 

 jury of the moth. Then was the first time my attention had ever been 

 called to the evil of the destruction of our native birds. In early times 

 our woods were full of robins, cat-birds, jay-birds, yellow-hammers, 

 wood-peckers, sapsuckers and others, all ravenous insect eaters, and 

 our orchards were full of them, and our homes were made happy by 

 their cheerful songs from early spring till late autumn, when it was as 

 rare to find a wormy apple as it is now to find a sound one. 



These birds are the natural protectors of our orchards, and are 

 worthy of our greatest consideration, and I believe that the horticul- 

 tural societies of every state should take the matter in hand before 

 they are all gone, and make their importance known to their legisla- 

 tors, and urge them to pass laws making it a penalty of not less than 

 ten dollars for shooting one of these birds. 



Such laws would not only put a stop to their destruction by reck- 

 less sportsmen, but would cause the general public to become better 

 acquainted with them and attach more importance to their work in our 

 our orchards. It would cause our wild birds to be treated as pets, 

 instead of targets for shot-guns. 



Whether apples can be saved from the ravages of the moth by 

 spraying the trees, as it now stands, is open to debate. Some think it 

 does much good, while others who have tried it think it did no good at 

 all. For my part, I never expected much good from spraying, because I 

 coald see no reason in it, so far as the moth is concerned. They fly 

 among the branches about twilight and the early part of the night to 

 deposit their eggs in the blossom ends af the young apples, and there 

 is no evidence that they are seeking to feed on anything that they may 

 "be poisoned or driven away; and if anything was in danger of being 

 injared by early spraying it would be the daylight insects, such as 

 honey-bees and other creatures that suck at the nectar of the blossoms, 

 and serve to fertilize them by carrying the pollen from one to another. 



Yet 1 believe that spraying may serve a purpose and a valuable 

 one, and that close observers will discover that it is not in molesting 

 the moth in its work, but by destroying bark and scab insects that feed 



