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During the past summer I spent a g'reat deal of time at an orchard and 

 vinejard near Florence, in this county. During previous years the owner 

 of this place has killed the English Sparrows at every opportunity. His 

 charge against them was that they nested in his wren boxes. I remonstrated 

 with him and induced him to put up more boxes, and make the entrances 

 of some of them too small for the sparrows, but large enough for the 

 wrens to enter, and the result was that wrens and Sparrows were numerous 

 around the house this year. In the door3'ard one tree contained nests of 

 Kingbird, Orchard Oriole, and Warbling Vireo; other trees near the house 

 contained nests of Baltimore Orioles, Robins, Kingbirds, Red-eyed Vireos, 

 Wood Pewee, Scarlet Tanager, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and under the 

 eaves of the buildings were nests of Phoebes and Barn Swallows. Around 

 this place it seemed as if there were nests in every available place, and all 

 the birds lived in peace and raised their broods of 3'oung, feeding them 

 mostly upon insects caught in the orchard, vineyard and garden plot. 



In previous years tent caterpillars were ver^' abundant, but this year 

 not one of their nests was to be seen around this place, although they were 

 numerous in other portions of this county. Worm-eaten apples were very 

 rare in this orchard this year; and while neighboring gardeners complained 

 very much of green cabbage worms, there were very few of them found in 

 a cabbage patch near this house. 



A flock of about fifty English Sparrows have made their winter quar- 

 ters around this house and frequently visit the corn crib, but the owner of 

 the place says "they are welcome to the corn, as they have well earned it", 

 and he vows that he will protect them in the future. 



One complaint against the Sparrows is that the^' are such prolific 

 breeders. This should redound to the credit of the Sparrow, as when the 

 young are in the nest they are fed almost exclusively upon insects. Mr. 

 W. D. Hunter of the University of Nebraska had a very interesting exper- 

 ience with the English Sparrow as a grasshopper destroyer upon the uni- 

 versity campus. I will let him relate this in his own way, merely drawing 

 your attention to it. I consider the English Sparrow to be one of the best 

 friends that the farmer and fruit-grower has, and I have arrived at this 

 conclusion from my experience in this country and in Europe, where they 

 have been carefully studied for many years. 



Dr. Brehm in "Bird-Life" states that Frederick the Great of Germany 

 offered a bounty of six pfennigs ( about 1% cents) per head for English 

 Sparrows, and everybody went Sparrow hunting. Thousands of dollars 

 were paid out for destroying the supposed corn-robbers. The consequence 

 of this was that the trees were soon covered with the larvae of noxious in- 

 sects, and stood not only without fruit, but also without leaves. Then it 

 was that the great king wisely took his hand off from Nature's machinery, 

 which he thought he could improve. He countermanded his orders regard- 

 ing the destruction of the Sparrows and immediately proceeded to re-intro- 

 duce the birds, undergoing great expense to secure live birds from other 

 portions of Europe, and these were very carefully protected. 



We should profit by the experience of the Germans, and not destroy 

 this bird and then afterwards bring others back to do the work that would 

 have been done at first, had the birds been given the opportunity. 



