COMMUNICATIONS 



621 



a national one, and spraying is entirely 

 out of the question. How could hun- 

 dreds of thousands of acres of forest 

 be sprayed ? And if they could, only a 

 part of the worms would be destroyed. 



The restoration of our birds is our 

 only hope. It is significant that these 

 worms' nests are most numerous near- 

 est the human abode. There are rea- 

 sons for this ; our songsters, the small 

 insectivorous birds, are buffeted and 

 driven away by that foreign vagabond, 

 the English house-sparrow ; and should 

 a bluebird, oriole, or wren succeed in 

 hatching a brood near a human habi- 

 tation, the little fledgling usually drops 

 to the ground, in its first effort at flight, 

 and is grabbed by a cat. The Audu- 

 bonists have ascertained that therje are 

 some 50,000,000 cats in the country, 

 and that they destroy on an average, 

 fifty young birds each, or 2,500,000,000 

 useful birds annually ! The crows are 

 multiplying at an enormous rate of 

 speed, and they do little else in the nest- 

 ing season than to rob small birds' nests 

 to feed to their own young. The young 

 bird is a dainty bit for the snake, and 

 the hawk has a piercing eye. Our 

 valuable birds are disappearing at the 

 rate of at least ten per cent, annually. 



Good people of America, something 

 must be done at once to restore the 

 birds. A paper is prepared, summariz- 

 ing the food habits of our small birds, 

 accompanied by a petition blank for 

 their restoration. 



We ask that every reader of Con- 

 servation send for the pamphlets and 

 commence work at once. Take them 

 to your clubs ; put them into the 

 hands of school teachers. Full instruc- 

 tions are given. 



Please remember it "takes money" to 

 do printing, and we ask you to enclose 

 a stamp to pay postage. 



Address, John Davey, Kent, Ohio, 



Two Essays 



Editor Conservation : 



The enclosed article, the valedictory 

 address of Miss Ellen M. Hast- 

 ings, of Elk River, Minn., High School, 



is to my mind a unique piece of for- 

 estry literature, not so much because of 

 any new information which it contains, 

 but from the novelty of its source and 

 its fresh, wholehearted and concise 

 treatment of a broad national topic. It 

 seems to me that we can ill afford to 

 let the spirit of young America therein 

 displayed go unnoticed, since that is 

 the spirit and generation whose interest 

 and support we want to enlist to carry 

 forward the movement for the conser- 

 vative use of our natural resources. I 

 venture to say that that address, linked 

 as it was with the personal interest of 

 every member of the audience in the 

 speaker, and borne to them in the spirit 

 of such an occasion as that, was a fac- 

 tor of more potentiality for lasting im- 

 pressions than a score of similar ad- 

 dresses delivered by the most enlight- 

 ened propagandist. The author is not 

 personally known to me, but I am 

 nevertheless interested to see all such 

 endeavors encouraged. 



Louis S. Murphy. 

 Thompson, Mont. 



MISS HASTINGS' VALEDICTORY ESSAY 



The forests; what do they mean to us? 

 Do they not embody strength, beauty, protec- 

 tion, inspiration? What would our environ- 

 ment here be without the woods? A deso- 

 late prairie, bleak in winter, and dazzling and 

 torrid in summer. Would we be content to 

 see our oaks gradually disappear, until we 

 might look across an interminable space, 

 with only the frail habitations of mankind to 

 obstruct our view? No; a thousand times 

 no ! If we, a very small part of the whole, 

 can begin to realize the importance of the 

 preservation of forests, how much more 

 ought our great, progressive, and far-seeing 

 nation to realize the momentous value of the 

 advancement of forestry. 



When the early colonist settled along our 

 eastern coast he found it covered with for- 

 ests. These furnished him lumber for his 

 home, and fuel. His old respect, matured 

 in the old world, was fostered. From a 

 friend the forest soon changed to an enemy. 

 Did it not shelter his deadly enemies, the 

 Indians and wild beasts? Did it not pre- 

 vent the pursuit of agriculture? Naturally 

 he assumed the attitude that the forests 

 must be destroyed if civilization was to ad- 

 vance. 



As his descendants moved westward they 

 continued to meet and to destroy the dense 

 forests, maintaining, long after there was the 

 faintest cause, the attitude rightfully assumed 

 by the first settler. 



