STATE HORTICULTURAL 80CIETV. • IQfJ 



for llicir cheering songs, their valuable example of applied industry, their 

 gratification to the eye in the sight of beautiful colors and graceful mo- 

 tions and for the faithful work they perform, from the time the ground 

 is broken in the spring, or the warmth of the season gives life and mo- 

 tion to the insect world, to the time when tiie fruits become ripe enougli 

 to tempt their appetite, continued through the seasons in early morning 

 and llu- later evening — then to charge against them the fruits they eat, 

 from the delicate strawberry to the wine-tlavored grape, and footing up 

 the accounts find on which side the balance is. My hope, desire, and 

 present belief is, that a very fair balance will be found in favor of the 

 birds. 



The great Creator of all things has had an eye to beauty as well as 

 to use; else, why has he colored the head of tlie Woodpecker red, or 

 shotted the Brown Thrush with the gray and the yellow .' The fully de- 

 veloped horticulturist has an aesthetic nature to be provided for as well as 

 a practical one, and when we weigh the birds in the balance, and give 

 them credit for their beauty and their songs, and their faithful work, 

 perhaps we will come to think that they have earned a right to a taste 

 of the first strawberries and the ripened grapes. 



DISCUSSION ON BIRDS. 



Mr. HuGGiNs^ — I cannot sit still here and not say a word in favor 

 of the birds — I always feel like speaking a good word for them, when 

 ever the subject comes up. I know there is a dispute in regard to 

 the benefit or injury that'they do. We all have loved the birds' music — 

 and we can but love those birds that are known not to be injurious — 1 

 wish to call attention to two birds, the Blue-bird and the Wren, which, 

 1 think, all hands will agree, are not injurious. I believe they are very 

 beneficial, and especially beneficial in destroying the Codling moth. I 

 cannot state facts as 1 would like to, I cannot speak positively and say 

 that I know that the Blue-birds take the Codling moth, but I believe 

 they do, as they are very active wherever this moth is found ; es- 

 pecially when they are rearing their young there is no leaf thai they do 

 not carefully examine, on every side. They search diligently for the 

 Codling moth, as I have reason to believe, and what the blue-bird 

 overlooks, the little wren will be likely to find. I think 1 have evidence 

 that the Codling moth does move in the daytime. Last fall, a year ago, 

 I placed apples in my cellar, and in midwinter I saw the insect flying 

 about the windows — this was evidence to me that under some circum- 

 stances at least, the moth did fly in the daytime. At any rate these birds 

 find them and destroy them, and hence 1 encourage their presence in 

 my orchard. I build nests for them, by hanging oyster cans upon the 

 limbs of my apple trees, and they are all occupied. 



