l6 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



of their leaves by insects, the borers have gotten in and the trees 

 have died. Trees are particularly essential in a mountainous 

 country. I want to tell you of what happened in Northern 

 China, where the people killed the birds and destroyed the trees. 

 The people became so numerous there that they killed the game 

 and the birds and cut down the trees, and by and by there were 

 no trees left; and they even dug up the roots of the trees. As 

 the trees died they cut them down and dug out the roots. Then 

 it came on winter and spring and the rain poured down on 

 those bare mountains as it rains on the roof of a house. As it 

 ran off, it tore the soil from the mountains and carried it into 

 the valleys, and the floods came and carried that soil down the 

 valleys to the sea. And today no man, no animal, no plant, 

 can live there. The continual floods and the continual denuda- 

 tion of the country has absolutely ruined it, and there in those 

 valleys you see the ruins of great cities. A land where for- 

 merly a numerous population existed is today a desert because 

 they destroyed the trees and destroyed the birds. 



In passing I must say a word about so-called hawks, real 

 hawks and owls. The night-hawk, so-called, is not really a 

 night bird, — it flies in the daytime also and is not a hawk at all. 

 It has a small weak bill. It could not kill a bird and its feet are 

 very weak. Its main feature is its mouth, and next its stomach. 

 It has a great mouth and a great stomach. The mouth opens 

 back to the ears. Professor Harvey, I believe, found 500 mos- 

 quitoes in the stomach of a night-hawk. The mosquitoes and 

 the flies that birds eat are very dangerous, especially in the 

 south, carrying the germs of yellow fever, typhoid, and other 

 diseases. Still, we kill these birds. No one should ever shoot 

 a night-hawk. There is a real hawk that is one of the most bene- 

 ficial birds, — the rough-legged hawk. I do not mean to say 

 that all hawks are beneficial. Some are destructive. But this 

 one has almost never been known to kill a bird. I think the 

 first record of that sort was noted last year, when some of these 

 hawks in the west killed meadow larks. They feed on animals 

 mainly, on field mice, etc. Now do you know w^hat would 

 happen if these field mice were not held in check by hawks and 

 owls and birds of that order which continually hunt them? 

 Every pair of these little mice will produce from twenty to thirty 

 young every year. Just think for a moment. Figure out and 



