Rural School Leaflet. 967 



locality every species of animal, if undisturbed, tends to increase to the 

 limit of its food supply. 



Then the white man came to this country, cutting down the forests, 

 planting grain, introducing new plants, and disturbing the balance of 

 nature generally. Large fields of corn and wheat meant increased 

 food supply for locusts, wireworms, cutworms, and the hke, which 

 formerly, between death by the birds and starvation, had been living 

 a precarious existence. Naturally there followed a great increase in 

 their numbers. Discovering this, the birds soon flocked to these fields 

 where they found such an abundance of insect food. The settlers, 

 ignorant of the habits of these birds and thinking they had come solely 

 to feed upon the grain, did their utmost to kill them off and frighten 

 them away. Without the birds to check them, such an increase of 

 these pests occurred that in places they were forced for a time almost to 

 give up the cultivation of grain. Forbush says; "In 1749, after a 

 great destruction among the crows and blackbirds for a reward of three 

 pence per dozen, the Northern states experienced a complete loss of 

 their grass and grain crops. The colonists were obliged to import hay 

 from England to feed their cattle." Again, " The greatest losses from 

 the ravages of the Rocky Mountain locust were coincident with or 

 followed soon after the destruction by the people of countless thou- 

 sands of Blackbirds, Prairie Chickens, Quail, Upland Plover, Curlew, 

 and other birds." Similar ravages by insects following the destruction 

 of birds have been noticed all over the world for centuries. 



When the balance of nature has once been disturbed, it is always 

 difficult to restore. Since our agricultural progress means increased and 

 increasing food supply for the insect pests, we must expect a correspond- 

 ing increase in their number, and if we would harvest all of the yield 

 we must provide a means for keeping them in check. Natural means 

 have seemed insufficient; so we have invented artificial methods for 

 their destruction. We poison our seed, we spray poison on the leaves 

 and branches, we fumigate whole orchards, we even gather the insects 

 by hand, spending millions and millions of dollars annually and yet 

 without avail. Locusts destroy our wheat, wireworms destroy our 

 corn, caterpillars destroy our trees and rob us of our fruit in spite 

 of all we can do; yet in all this work of protection, we tend to 

 overlook our most valuable allies, the birds. So quietly their work 

 goes on, that many people live and die without appreciating anything 

 but their beautiful feathers. True, at times, so striking has been the 

 protection given by the birds that even the dullest could not over- 

 look it. In 1848, after the first year's crops had been entirely 



