24 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



which gives, for each clay and bird, a total of four hundred 

 and eighty-three insects destroyed. Even though the sense- 

 less butchery of these feathered friends of man were done 

 under the pretence of supplying food for the table, imagine, 

 if you can, how many bushels of wheat, or barrels of wine, 

 or bales of cotton, are represented in each of these little 

 victims ! Nor is this war of extermination carried on alone 

 by men ; but children of that age, as La Fontaine says, 

 " which is without pity," take part in this wanton savagery 

 by destroying the nests, and killing the helpless young, of 

 these unpaid servants of the tillers of the soil. The sight 

 of a beautiful bird sporting among the trees and flowers is 

 regarded by these thoughtless idlers as a mere target, formed 

 by the Creator for them to mutilate and kill. But let us 

 consider, for a moment, what we protect when we defend 

 the brute creatures. In 1860 there were in the United 

 States nine millions of horses and mules, twenty-nine millions 

 of neat-cattle, twenty-four millions of sheep, thirty-seven 

 millions of swine. Their aggregate value was one billion 

 dollars, having doubled in ten years. Their annual revenue 

 — calculating twelve million of working-horses, mules, and 

 yokes of oxen, at fifty cents per day for three hundred work- 

 ing-days only — is one billion, eight hundred millions of dol- 

 lars per annum. To this must be added their flesh, and 

 other products of their bodies, making a total revenue of 

 over two billion dollars, — almost as much as our national 

 debt. That from fowl or fish is proportionally great. 



A few years ago the farmers of New England were unwise 

 enough to kill a certain race of birds which eat a little of 

 their grain ; and the result of their folly was, that the entire 

 hay-crop of that season was destroyed ; and, later still, the 

 husbandmen of Nebraska imitated their foolish example by 

 exterminating another friendly bird, which they fed to the 

 hogs in vast numbers ; the consequence of which was, that 

 swarms of grasshoppers immediately made their appearance, 

 and annihilated the products of their labors. But there is 

 another aspect to this matter, and that is the moral, which is 

 even more remarkable. In casting our eyes over the numer- 

 ous catalogue of human crimes and frailties, over the list of 

 those who have perished on the scaffold, or died some other 

 death of violence, — the result of blasted character and the 



