THE CHERRY AND THE CHERRY TREE. 389 



HANDLING. 

 No tree is so sensitive to bruising or breaking as the cherry, and it requires 

 very little pruning. So that with common caution in handling at the trans- 

 planting, in the after care, and with the true science of pruning, which, with 

 all fruit trees is to cut as little as possible, and rarely to sliorten in, this sensi- 

 tiveness of the tree ceases to be a great difficulty. 



THE CUECULIO. 



Many people have sweet cherry trees which annually set good crops of fruit 

 and as often disappoint the wishful owners by the attacks of the curculio. 

 Such persons are too negligent or have too much to do to apply the necessary 

 remedies; for we can hardly conceive of any citizen of Michigan, who takes 

 enough interest in fruit to grow a cherry tree, who can be ignorant of the 

 known methods of destroying that insect. 



THE DESTRUCTIOX 



of this crop by birds can and should be remedied. The Cedar bird or Cherry 

 bird is the principal destroyer of this crop. Other birds work at them slowly, 

 usually devouring all of tlie cherry they attack, while the cherry bird takes 

 only a bite or two from a cherry, mutilating and thus destroying probably a 

 quart to make his little self a meal. And when such cherries are worth 

 twenty-five cents a quart we can estimate the cost of boarding those little 

 cormorants. 



With the loss of the trees by the winter of 1872 and 1ST3, with the rot the 

 present season, with the attack of the curculio and the destruction by birds, it 

 is a fact that nearly the whole west, in town and country, has been without 

 sweet cherries the past season. In some cases where a single tree has stood 

 near a dwelling, the birds have been kept from the fruit by hanging a bell in 

 the tree with a string running from it into the house, where some person 

 could frequently give it a jerk and thus frighten the birds away. Such an 

 expedient, at best, can only save to the family a supply for themselves. If we 

 cannot relieve our cherrv orchards of the depredations of this little pirate, we 

 may as well cut them down, and the lovers of cherries in town may give up 

 this pleasant source of enjoyment and health. 



The legislators of this State have declared it a crime punishable by a fine of 

 $5 to kill a cherry bird. We are ready to give them credit for good intentions 

 in the passage of the law ; but they acted on partial information. It has been 

 claimed that these birds are insectivorous, more than compensating for their 

 little peccadilloes by destroying noxious insects. x\t different times during 

 the past season I have examined the stomachs of eleven of these birds, usually 

 with a magnifying glass, and have, every time, failed to find any insect food. 

 And I have found, by four different examinations of young birds in the nest, 

 that they, too, have no insect diet. 



In all my experience I have found no exception to these statements. The 

 cherry bird is an unmitigated pest, and sJiouId be destroyed; else we must give 

 up one of the most beautiful and luscious of all the nice fruits. 



The plea for the cherry bird is simply sentimentalism. He may be pretty, 

 but he 13 not good. A cherry is both. 



This indiscriminate adulation of the feathered warblers is bringing its 

 fruits. The English sparrows which these bird-lunatics have brought over 

 from Europe, are proving to be the scourge that people who knew their habita 

 declared they would be. They are increasing rapidly, and wherever they spread 



