38 Nebraska State Horticultural Society. 



trees, and we never had any trouble, either. All kinds of fruit grew 

 well. I went back there about twenty years ago, and found that no 

 fruit could be grown except apples. Plums, peaches and everything 

 else was gone. Some insect had done the business. We asked ourselves 

 what was the cause of this. It seems to me that this is the same here, 

 — there is a cause at the bottom of all this, and we must get down to 

 that underlying cause before we can hope to accomplish anything. We 

 want to get down to the bottom of this scientifically, and find out just 

 how these things come to be. 



MR. DAVIDSON: Just one word. It occurs to me that this- 

 trouble is more noticeable and prevalent on account of the destruction 

 of our forests and the scarcity of bird life. If we had fifty times the 

 number of birds that we now have, there would be a great scarcity of 

 insects at the present time. It seems to me that birds would do more 

 toward keeping insects down than all the guineas we could raise. 



MR. KEYSER: I would like to make a few remarks on this bird 

 question. I have listened to the talk of entomologists, etc., for several 

 years about the protection of birds. It seems to me to be time spent 

 uselessly. I believe birds are a good thing, however, but when you 

 come to fighting insects, you can wait for the birds to do it. I think 

 we should pay more attention to scientific investigation and more 

 thorough experiments in spraying. It may be that I don't appreciate 

 the full value of the bird side of this question, but I think we can ac- 

 complisih more in some other way — in a way that is much more prac- 

 tical. 



MR. MARSHALL: I don't think that which Mr. Keyser suggests 

 is the whole solution of this question, but it is surely part of it. I 

 think he is drawing the bird question a little too strong. I believe the 

 birds do more good than we really think for. I believe the birds are 

 increasing steadily. I did not use to think much of birds, but now I 

 am a friend of almost any bird. 



MR. BROWN: While it is true that we are nearly always fighting 

 insects of some kind, yet we surely get rid of a large amount of them 

 during the summer by the bird method. I believe that if the birds 

 were encouraged more, and protected, that they would do a great deal 

 toward solving this insect question. 



MR. YAGER: I used to get the old shotgun out and go after the 

 birds at cherry picking time, but this year I did not do it. I really 

 think the birds ought to be encouraged and protected. 



MR. SWAN: A couple of years ago we had a field of about half 



