126 Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



loss makes breadstuffs scarce and higher priced for all. 

 One-half the apple crop is generally ruined, and some or- 

 chardists consider it ineffectual to plant more trees, till 

 stringent measures are taken for protecting their feathered 

 allies. Wisconsin shade trees are being difoliated, and even 

 our woods assailed, an experience already old in Iowa and 

 Illinois. A beautiful and natural poplar grove on my 

 father's farm, was last year nearly destroyed by leaf-rollers. 

 Many oaks and butternuts there are infested with caterpil- 

 lars. Other and older countries afford similar testimony. 

 An English farmer destroyed some 10,000 small birds in one 

 season, and yet had crops below the average of his neigh- 

 borhood. Some years ago, France and Germany were over- 

 run with sportsmen, as this country is at present. Birds 

 and crops diminished together, till those governments inter- 

 vened, and, by general, stringent laws, saved the farmer's 

 best friends. Instead of following a bitter experience to its 

 very end, can we not learn wisdom from our predecessors 

 on the same road? Farmers are better aware than most 

 people, how close the fight for possession of our earth is 

 between man and insects. Individually he is larger, nu- 

 merically they are stronger, and their quickness, persistence, 

 and prolificness, have an inverse ratio to size. As you are 

 aware, Audubon, Wilson, Edwards, Forbes, Lintner, King, 

 Powell, and many other authorities, unitedly affirm birds 

 annually destroy insects to a number inexpressible by 

 figures, and are nature's force for ' preserving the balance 

 of power.' As high as fifty worms have been found within 

 a bird's crop. A pair of thrushes were seen to carry to their 

 young over 100 insects in an hour. Prof. C. V. Riley, en- 

 tomologist United States Agricultural Department, lately 

 issued a bulletin showing that kerosene, cold water, and 

 various insecticides have been over-estimated. I have 

 found pyretheum and hellibore, not always doing their 

 work. Paris green and London purple are poisoning the 

 land. If our birds were all destroyed, is it not probable this 

 country would speedily become a desert? The spider fam- 

 ily would then be our best and almost only hope. " Killing 

 two birds with one stone," an expression traced to the dark 



