182 ANNUAL REPORT. 



have actually been fatally poisoned, but, as in adulterations of 

 sugar, syrups, etc., injury is no less because it comes on gradu- 

 ally and insidiously. Insectivorous birds and animals, on the 

 contrary, are natural and safe allies for horticulturists. Prof. 

 King, of River Falls, who has examined stomachs of many hun- 

 dred birds, thinks not more than thirty-five per cent of the rob- 

 in's food is fruit, and, therefore, commends this generally 

 distrusted and persecuted bird. As fowls are usually made to 

 fast a while before being killed for market, it is difficult to de- 

 termine just what proportion insects form of their food. An 

 aquaintance tried, by dissecting a number of sick individuals, 

 to learn the secrets of some mysterious malady visiting her flock. 

 She was surprised at the large number of familiar insects found 

 in the crops even of these partially disabled hens. At least 

 cherries, raspberries and blackberries grow out of reach of fowls, 

 and it can fairly be inferred they destroy less fruit than robins do. 

 Let a few additional plants be allowed for them, and they will 

 save all from overbearing, a thinning out by hand not often be- 

 ing practiable. Moles have many friends, and toads are a regu- 

 lar article of commerce, being imported to England from 

 Denmark at the rate of five dollars per hundred. But moles 

 frequently eat off roots and make unsightly mounds of earth. 

 And finally, in the comparison of merits, domestic fowls cannot 

 fail to outrank wild birds and insectivorous animals, because, 

 unlike all others, they are themselves a source of profit. Here 

 again is reverse action. With insects or some other meat for 

 food, an extra production of eggs may be expected. 



A list of such injurious insects as poultry are actually known 

 to eat will add positiveness. A friend has called my attention 

 to the Illinois Horticultural report, of 1883, on the chicken rem- 

 edy for sorghum 'plant louse, and the Michigan Pomological 

 rej)ort, of 1877, on the same remedy for curculio. Not only 

 plums, but apricots, peaches, cherries, apples, pears and quinces 

 are attacked by curculios, hardly a fruit escaping if these insects 

 are abundant. When plums are about as large as peas, the cur- 

 culio stings them, making incisions in which she deposits her 

 eggs. Fruit, weakened by the gnawing of the grubs which 

 hatch, falls before ripening, but by this time its grubs are ready 

 to pass through other changes. 



Prof. Kneeland, of Boston, says poultry running about the 

 trees will devour many larvae before they can enter the earth. 

 Full grown insects, shaken from a tree or disturbed, remain 



