STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. I 75 



efforts to arrest them, the butterflies of the next generation were more numerous than 

 before, and their eggs covered entire trunks of the forest trees. Before the end of July 

 all but about three thousand acres in the entire district had been eaten bare and killed, 

 and by the end of June, 1855, over seven thousand acres of pine land had been com- 

 pletely killed, and three thousand more rendered worthless, except for fire-wood. Four- 

 and-a-half millions of cords of wood were cut from these forests ; the loss caused by the 

 depreciation of their value was not less than a hundred millions of thalers, or about 

 eighty millions of dollars in gold. Now, what is the lesson this fearful calamity should 

 teach us, as well as those impoverished proprietors ? They have, in Europe, birds 

 which, if they had fostered, encouraged and protected, instead of persecuting and 

 destroying them, would have successfully encountered these hosts of insects and destroyed 

 them. Of these, the European jay is the most important. In size, habits and general 

 character it greatly resembles our own blue-jay; in fact, except in their places of abode, 

 and in some slight differences of plumage, the two birds are almost exactly the same in 

 all respects. Both frequent and prefer the forests, both render invaluable services by 

 feeding upon the eggs of caterpillars in the winter, for they are resident and not migra- 

 tory birds, and by feeding their young with the caterpillars. 



It has been ascertained that one pair of jays will feed its young with half a million 

 of caterpillars in a season, and that each bird will destroy, during the winter, eggs that 

 in the following spring would have hatched into at least a million or more of the larvje. 

 Our blue-jays would do the same if we would let them and not persecute them. Their 

 favorite food is the egg of our apple-tree or tent-caterpillar, and for their young the 

 lars'ae of this same insect is also their choice. A pair of blue-jays in an orchard would 

 clear it so effectually of every caterpillar in a single season that not one single insect 

 could be found. This is not mere theory, but absolute I'act, demonstrated by the careful 

 investigation of the venerable Dr. Kirtland, of Cleveland. So completely did his care- 

 fully protected jay extirpate these pests from the lake shore of that part of Ohio, that 

 absolutely not a single individual specimen could be found for miles around Cleveland. 

 And yet our wiseacres in the State Legislature of Massachusetts, in this very last session, 

 in a law designed to protect our birds, among its other absurdities and inconsistencies, 

 especially dooms the jay, probably the best and most valuable bird we have among us, 

 to destruction, and makes it an outlaw, whose life any vagabond may take with impunity. 

 There are other features in this law which, in view of the ignorance they betray, and 

 its signal shortcoming, are simply disgraceful to its authors, but which I will not now 

 take your time by considering. My chief point is this, that the presence, in their native 

 forests, of only a hundred pairs of European jays would have arrested this great loss, 

 would have effectually aided in the destruction of these insects in a single season, and 

 would have been worth to the proprietors of these forests about a hundred millions of 

 dollars. 



I have mentioned the cockchafer as one of the most fearful of the insect pests of 

 Europe. It is the counterpart of our May-beetle, and the grub veiy closely resembles 

 ours. The European form is, however, worse than that of this country, inasmuch as 

 the beetles are quite as destructive as the larvae. The destructiveness of the worms are 

 about on a par, only in Europe the large extent of deep culture has tended to their 

 more rapid increase. Yet, we have not much to comfort ourselves with in this respect. 

 In our vicinity, these insects are evidently, for some cause, on the increase. The sum- 

 mer of 1868 witnessed a larger flight than was probably ever seen before of the parent 

 beetle. Our grounds are unusually full of the year-old larvae, and it will be fortunate for 

 us if the summer of 1871, when they will have reached their full growth, does not 

 develop even a greater amount of injury to grass-lands and crops than was noticed in 1867. 



In Europe, as I have said, the destruction caused by these insects is something 

 almost fearful to contemplate. One of these insects, in the larva form, it has been 

 ascertained, eats no less than two pounds of vegetable root matter during the three years 

 in which it is passing from the egg to the chrysalis. A single statement will give you 

 some idea of the enormous quantities in which they are found, ajul their capacities for 

 mischief. The single canton of Berne, in Switzerland, in area not half the size of 

 Connecticut, in the years 1S64 and 1865, paid out 259,000 francs, in bounties for the 

 destruction of these insects. There were collected and destroyed 83,729 viertels of the 



