24 



together with that of the Violet Polijgonmn, buckwheat and 

 wheat. Oue dove, which had recently left the nest, had in its 

 crop 7,500 seeds of the yellow sorrel {Oxalis stricta.) " 



From the foregoing statements of biologists, and the few- 

 notes made in Cameron parish, there can be no doubt but that 

 doves throughout the country must consume annually many tons 

 of weed seed which, if left on the ground, would give just so 

 much more chance for weeds to sprout out and become obnoxious 

 to the farmer, who probably suffers more from their injurious 

 effects than from any one of his numerous other enemies. To 

 quote from W. L. McAtee (Bull. 23, Bio. Sur.) : "They rob the 

 soil of its nutritive elements and of its moisture, and thus re- 

 duce the size of the crops. They are most hardy, vigorous plants, 

 and choke out the more delicate plants of cultivation. Many 

 fungus diseases of cereal, fruit and other crops, such as rusts 

 and rots, depend upon their continuance upon weeds as inter- 

 mediate hosts. Such weeds as mustards are especially well known 

 as the primary basis of rusts. . . . The damage they cause, 

 reckoned in dollars and cents, is enormous. The botanist of the 

 department says, 'The direct loss in crops, the damage to ma- 

 chinery and stock, and the decrease in the value of the land due 

 to weeds, amount without question to tens of millions of dollars 

 each year, a loss sustained almost entirely by the farmers of the 

 nation.' " 



Weeds, as a rule, produce far more seeds than do cultivated 

 plants, a single one often producing thousands. The common 

 foxtail, for example, has been known to produce 113,000 seeds 

 per plant, and the Tumble weed as high as 115,000; multiply 

 this by the thousands of these plants in existence, and again by 

 the hundreds of species of other varieties found in any one 

 locality, and one can get some idea as to the number of seeds 

 that are annually matured. 



As stated above, the percentage of domestic grain eaten by 

 doves is small, yet the amount must be considerable in localities 

 where these birds are found in large numbers; but we must not 

 overlook the fact that they gather their food, with the exception 

 of a few wild berries, wholly on the ground, and never pluck the 

 kernel from the stalks, eating only what grain falls to the ground 

 and which, therefore, cannot be utilized, becoming practically 



