378 ANNUAL REPORT. 



sweet and early; they are very fond of sweet fruits. The June: 

 berry, both standard and dwarf, can be had in this State for the 

 digging, and are perfectly hardy. Then offer them some of the 

 sweetest cherries you can muster, think i^erhaps the Osterheim 

 would fill the bill. Then pick for the mildest flavored straw- 

 berries. The Turner raspberry is sweet and good and they will 

 not refuse a share of these; set them plentifully. Next the black- 

 berry; give them a good show of Snyder, Stone's Hardy, Ancient 

 Briton and Wilson, Jr. Now comes the grapes, and if there is 

 anything a bird delights in it is the Sweet Delaware grape; plant 

 liberally of the Delaware. And so let the sweetest fruits follow 

 in close succession from the earliest to the latest, and do not fear 

 about getting anything too good for the birds, for that is impos- 

 sible. ''The laborer is worthy of his hire." We have told how 

 to feed the feathered songsters, and now how shall we best pro- 

 • tect them from the cold and storms'? I know of nothing that 

 will please or protect them better than an abundance of ever- 

 green trees; shorten in all the outside branches, so as to thicken 

 them up, and so make a perfect shelter and protection. Place 

 bird houses and boxes about in the deciduous trees, and do all 

 in your power to convince the birds that you are their true 

 friend. It is estimated by entomologists that we have some 

 500,000 species of insects — a much larger number than of all 

 other classes of animals combined. Many are microscopic, and 

 the loss sustained by their secret workings are beyond computa- 

 tion. There was a move made at our last annual meeting, look- 

 ing to the appointment of a State entomologist, this I most 

 heartily approve of. But even if we succeed in this very laud- 

 able undertaking, it will not do away with the necessity we are 

 under to foster the birds. It has been estimated by competent 

 judges that insects destroyed over one-half the fruit crop in 

 Minnesota the past season. This shows our subject to be one of 

 no trivial importance. 



FEUIT GEO WING IN THE BED BIVEE VALLEY. 



The secretary, while attending the State Dairymen's Conven- 

 tion at Fairbault, in March, 1885, met there Mr. F. J. Schreiber, 

 of Moorhead, Minn., and by request a brief description was 

 given of his plans for fruit raising in the Bed Biver Valley, 

 which may not be without interest to fruit growers of other lo- 

 calities. His farm, which consists of over 2,000 acres, is 



