172 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Weld : I could not stay there all the time to do that', I 

 have something else to do. I will tell you what I did this year, and 

 it proved a success. I had two rows of currants sixty feet or over 

 in length. I drove some posts in tlie ground and put some pieces 

 of 2x4 across and covered them over with mosquito netting. I 

 bought ten bolts which cost me $3.20. I covered them all over, 

 and the birds did not get at them. We had all the currants we 

 wanted and sold enough to pay for the mosquito netting. After I 

 gpt through with it I rolled it up and put it away, and it will do 

 to use again next year. 



Mr. Lano : Can you name any of the birds you found eating 

 currants ? 



Mr. Weld : I saw robins and sparrows eating the currants. 



Mr. Lano : If you will try this experiment I tbink you will 

 find they will not trouble you so much. Put up posts six or eight 

 feet high, and to those posts hang pieces of bright tin. These 

 tins will blow about and revolve in the sunlight and will frighten 

 the birds away. 



Mr. Murray : I introduced that scheme in our region of coun- 

 try. It will work well enough for a year or two until the birds 

 become smart enough to know it won't hurt them, and then they 

 will light right on the posts. 



Mr. Benjamin: I think a man ought to stand there with a 

 shot gun to keep the cedar birds out. They work in cloudy weather 

 as well as in any other. 



Mr. Lano: The cedar wax-wing will actually eat the blossoms 

 of the apple trees. Two years ago the season was a little earlier 

 than usual with us. We lived in the northern part of the state, 

 and the apple trees, the Duchess, Wealthy and Transcendent crab, 

 were in full bloom when the cedar wax-wing arrived from the 

 south, and they ate up many of the blossoms. I am fond of birds 

 and never kill one unless I wish to use it'. For a number of days 

 they were feeding on my apple blossoms before I discovered what 

 they were doing, and I then began to chase them away, but it was 

 too late. In the season of 1905 the apple trees were a little in ad- 

 vance of the arrival of the wax-wings from the south, and I was 

 ready for them. I shot a few of them, and it scared the rest away, 

 and we had lots of apples. When we say sparrows it means the 

 largest family of North American birds, most of them perfectly 

 harmless, except the English sparrow, and he should be killed 

 wherever found just like a rat. He is the rat of the bird family. 

 The robin will leave your orchard if you simply fire ofif a gun 

 several times, and it will make you less trouble than putting up 

 netting. 



