FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 457 



In addition to training farmers, we could successfully train our young 

 teachers — a thing Iowa sadly needs today. Delaware county employed two 

 hundred and fifty-eight different teachers last year. Forty had never taught 

 before, and more than half had received no special training. If we could but 

 train these teachers— give them something more than the common school 

 can provide — we would remove much of the difficulty in our rural schools. 

 The teacher should have a liberal education, be bubbling over with enthu- 

 siasm for her work and should know what she is to do when she enters the 

 schoolroom. When this fact becomes a reality then may we expect our 

 schools to fulfill their mission. We feel sure the influence of a county school 

 would not stop with the boy or girl on the farm but would pass to other 

 callings. That there would be a general awakening in our schools as our 

 boys and girls come under the influence of an enthusiastic, trained teacher. 



BIRDS IN THEIR RELATION TO AGRICULTURE. 



3frs. J. J. Smart, Before the Humboldt County Farmers' Institute. 



Scientists regard the relation of birds to agriculture as a most important 

 one. The more we, who are not scientists, observe for ourselves along this 

 line, the more convinced do we become that it is important, and therefore 

 the more anxious we are to have this knowledge made more general- 

 extending not only to the heads of families but to every child in each one of 

 these families. We would have them know the birds not only in this one 

 relation to man, but in their various relations to him. This means years of 

 careful study and observation, but since it is done at odd times, principally 

 during our walks, on our way to and from town, and while working in our 

 gardens, and since it soon becomes one of the joys of country life, it should 

 be encouraged, especially in the children. 



This one relation, however, the relation of the birds to agriculture, is 

 the one in which the farmer is especially interested, and it is this particular 

 relation we are to consider this afternoon. If we were to go into a grove or 

 orchard today, we should probably see something there that would throw 

 some light upon this question at once. We should in all probability see the 

 downy and hairy woodpeckers climbing up and around the trunks of the 

 various trees, exploring each tiny crack and crevice in the bark as they 

 climb — lingering sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other, tapping 

 first here, then there, with their hard bills. We should know, of course, 

 that it was food they were in search of, but we should need to go to the sci- 

 entist to find out just what this food consists of, and from this we should be 

 able to judge whether these birds are friends or enemies of the trees. The 

 scientists employed by our Government have examined the contents of the 

 stomachs of hundreds of these birds, as they have of all birds about which 

 there is any question. These scientists tell us that from two-thirds to three- 

 fourths of the downy and hairy woodpecker's food consists of the eggs and 

 larvas of injurious insects which they find in and behind the bark of trees, 

 and this is true not only of downy and hairy birds who live here all the year 



