422 State Horticultural Society. 



honey ouly he would have a good queen of the golden variety, and would 

 not care whether they mated with black or hybrid stock, as his experience 

 has shown that such crossbred workers have proved the very best for 

 comb honey. The drones should be only distantly related to the queens. 

 Use queens closely related to Italian stock for extracted honey, hut when 

 white-capped comb honey is wanted choose the golden Italian queens, 

 and the hybrids from them are in no way inferior to Italians from im- 

 ported stock in honey-gathering qualities. — -Am. Cultivator. 



A PLEA FOE BIRDS. 



Who does not appreciate the songs of the birds, especially on an 

 early spring morning when all nature is awakening from its long sleep ? 

 How joyfully we greet the first robin, and later, when warm weather 

 comes how pleasant it is to go into the woods and groves and listen to the 

 music that gushes forth from the throats of many happy songsters, and see 

 them flit about in the sober hues of the robin, or the brilliant coloring 

 of the oriole, and yet a great many people do not think the birds useful 

 to us, and cruelly and heartlessly kill them. 



Besides the pleasures derived from their songs and beautiful plum- 

 age they are, as a class, very useful to man. Take the robin, for example. 

 Many people kill the robin whenever they get a chance, on the plea that he 

 eats their fruit. He does eat fruit, but still he kills many noxious insects, 

 and I heard a gentleman say that he would share a cherry with a robin, for 

 anybody is selfish who will not give him a little fruit for his work of sav- 

 ing it all. 



The brown thrush and cat bird also eat fruit but the bugs and worms 

 ^vhich they catch pay for their fruit. 



Swallows, martins, blue birds and wrens are almost entirely insect- 

 ivorous and are of untold benefit to the farmer. 



Almost anybody is ready to kill a hawk or an owl whenever he sees 

 one, on account of his liking for domestic fowls. These birds eat very 

 few fowls compared with the number of injurious insects which they eat. 

 They also catch many field mice that otherwise would be the means of 

 destroying much grain. 



