Summer Meeting. 43 



Question — Does not spraying destroy as many beneficial in- 

 sects also? Would not this rule hold good here? 



Mr. Baxter — Don't think it holds good here. 



Mr. Green — I don't like to kill the birds. They are too pretty. 

 But we have got to do without the birds or without fruit. They 

 have taken a whole crop of blackberries from me. I am tender- 

 hearted and don't like to kill; so grow berries for the birds and 

 buy them for myself. I once tried raising the codling moth to study 

 them. Also tried raising birds and put boxes everywhere. Finally 

 let the birds come into the room, where they caught the codling 

 moth, but they liked spiders better. Now the spiders catch more 

 codling moth than the birds. If we could train wrens to eat the 

 codling moth and leave the spiders alone, we would be all right. The 

 question is, how much shall we do for the birds? In one cherry 

 tree I counted 19 robins. We didn't get any cherries — leave them 

 for the birds and go without. 



Mrs. Dugan — I am much interested in the bird question. The 

 paper read was very good, well written and well read. I have al- 

 ways chased boys with guns out of my place, and the birds came 

 in, blue birds, and other sorts. The sparrows are so saucy and nu- 

 merous, they fly down and eat with the chickens at my very feet. 

 Swarms of them come, and later the blackbirds, blue jays and 

 others. Between them they get most of the chicken feed. Have 

 to feed my chickens several times a day, so that the chickens can 

 get enough food to grow and get fat upon. I like the robbins, and 

 am willing to give them all the fruit they want on account of their 

 beauty, but the blue jays and sparrows are not so desirable. They 

 rob other birds' nests and drive out the song birds. Thousands 

 roost in our trees. We will have to do something to protect our- 

 selves. We want to save our fruit and have the birds we like. 



Mr. Green — I want to say a word for the sparrow. No one 

 will speak a single good word for him. I was once scolding about 

 them when a man said, "Maybe you don't know all about them," 

 and he took me to the cabbage patch and I saw them eating the 

 cabbage worms. 



Secretary Goodman — Think we are perfectly justified in shoot- 

 ing the blue jays and black birds at certain times of the year. If 

 we will hang them up in the trees after shooting them, will find a 

 great help in keeping other birds away. But we must remember 

 that all the rest of the year they do much good. The jay is a 

 robber. Try to kill them and keep them away during the short 

 period of ripening fruit. Try to protect the song birds and the 



