STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 131 



" The Douglas," though "tender and trewe " — to birds, was not 

 present, and Dr. Warder, owing cither to having had his grapes eat- 

 en the past season, or to the dread presence of a good many mem- 

 bers of that ornithological Ku Klux Klan, the Alton Horticultural 

 Society, did not make so good a fight as he was capable of. 



Spaulding — I would like to know something of the usefulness of 

 the English Sparrow. 



Warder — It has cleared the docks in New York city. We are 

 going to have 400 or 500 of them in Cincinnati the coming season. 



Column — I am a friend of birds in general. But in a young ap- 

 ple orchard of mine, in the wooded country below St. Louis, I find 

 the Sapsucker has girdled hundreds of trees. He ought to be ex- 

 terminated. 



Hull — We must distinguish between birds- Our Alton Horticul- 

 tural Soc. likes birds as a whole, but dislikes some. There are injuri- 

 ous and useful birds, just as there are injurious and useful insects. 

 Our boys learn to kill one class and save the other. Again, birds often 

 eat more of our friends among insects, than of our enemies. We 

 have created food for injurious insects, and they increase. The birds 

 do not keep up the balance. The lady-bug, as a cannibal insect is 

 more useful than the birds. I would kill the Jay, Catbird, Cherry- 

 bird, Oriole, Sapsucker, and Red-headed Woodpecker. 



Wier — I can get along with all except the Catbird, Thrush, and 

 Jay. I can keep birds off of my grapes, but not off of my cherries. 



Hull — I move to recommend the killing of the six birds I have 

 named. 



Spaulding — There is also a bird new to us, of a steel blue color, 

 that was very destructive this year. I killed two bushels of this 

 and the Oriole, in two or three days. They appeared to be migrat- 

 ing. They peck and spoil the berries without eating them. Kill- 

 ing some, drove off others. My neighbors with vineyards of from 

 one-fourth to one acre, who did not kill birds, had their grapes all 

 destroyed. 



Turner — I once forbad my boys from killing any birds on my 



